The Physics of Lies
by BstnStrg13
Summary: Begun in S4, a series of unconnected one-shots imagining the ways Oliver's lie about his son might be exposed and the aftermath when it is. Over time, this has morphed into stories of Oliver and Felicity finding their way back to each other, some with angst...others not so much. Chapter 7 takes us into S5 and Chapter 9 into S6.
1. Space (The Press Conference)

_**A/N: A brief explanation:**_

 **Physics** _is a collection of one-shots, unrelated except that they deal with aftermath of Oliver's lie to Felicity about William in Season 4. They are single chapter stories about Oliver and Felicity's separation, and in many cases, their return to each other.  
_

 _More than any of my other_ Arrow _stories, these were written in real-time as reactions to specific episodes in S4, S5, and with Chapter 9, S6. Because of that, the emotion is immediate - and not necessarily well analyzed. If I didn't like an episode or was ticked off with something a character did - it shows up in the story.  
_

 _I've gotten some pretty interesting feedback on these (more on AO3 than here). I even had a couple of people PM me and say they would never read another word I wrote after_ **Gravity** _(Chapter 5 - written right after the fake Oliver/Felicity wedding in S4) because they thought Felicity was too bitter and spiteful in that chapter. To ignore an entire body of work because of 3000 words seems an extreme reaction to me, but so be it._

 _I confess to having a love-dislike relationship with_ Arrow _. I found S1 and S2 to be brilliant. After that, I felt the writers lost their way and were unable to build and sustain an arc over a season. Instead, they abruptly inserted characters or had Barry Allen mess with the timeline when they wanted to shift the story. Mostly I get annoyed when Oliver doesn't learn from past mistakes, which happens fairly regularly. He swears he wants to be rid of the darkness, tries to stop being the Arrow, then goes back to it and feels guilty. Rinse and repeat.  
_

 _Still, I keep watching because I think Amell, Ramsey and Rickards are really good. Someone made a great casting choice when they hired those three. And I'm encouraged by S6.  
_

 _Anyway...some of these are angsty and some are more humorous. Usually when I go back and read my stuff months later I just see the faults. However, if you were to ask me my favorites, they are Chapter 1 (_ Space) _and Chapter 4, (_ Entropy) _. I don't think I would change much in either chapter.  
_

 _Enjoy and thanks for letting me indulge in my little_ Arrow _rant._

* * *

 **Space**

(Written immediately following Oliver's lie)

You'd think that after spending more than half his life in the public eye he wouldn't have butterflies when holding a press conference. Over the years he'd been in the Star City news for his antics (as a juvenile), his courtroom appearances (on behalf of both himself _and_ family members), and as CEO of a Fortune 500 company (now gone). He couldn't even begin to guess the number of times he'd been half-blinded by camera flashes or heard a reporter call out " _Mr. Queen"_ in an effort to get his attention. His finances, social life and academic experience (or lack of it) had all been exposed and analyzed by both tabloids and more serious new sources. Nothing was off limits. He didn't like it, but he should be accustomed to it.

He wasn't. Every time he got in front of the reporters it was the same story; he felt queasy, afraid of mishandling a subject and saying something stupid or just plain wrong. Journalists had a way of firing questions that was not all that different from the way he fired arrows - they came quickly, painfully, and often with deadly accuracy. And running for mayor? Well, that just made the questions harder. They all expected him to have short, simple answers to long, complex problems. He told Alex, his campaign manager, that he doubted there was much value in holding press conferences when he was running unopposed. To Oliver, it felt like creating unnecessary opportunities to screw up. Alex insisted, however, that he show the citizens of Star City who he was and how much he cared. Even if they weren't facing a choice, he said, the voters wanted to believe they had the right person in office. And so Oliver sucked it up at least once a month and met the press.

Felicity and Speedy helped. The night before the conference they would open a bottle of wine in the loft and drill him with questions. Felicity, in particular, could emulate the reporters frighteningly well. She would ask about the economy, the Glades, his fitness to lead and his plan for jobs, all the while throwing facts and figures at him. The questions started out serious, but inevitably the three of them would lapse into silliness. " _So, Mr. Queen,_ " Felicity would say, " _the most recent polls show that 72 percent of the female voters think that you have a good ass. What is your plan to win over the remaining 28 percent? And as mayor, do you plan to make that ass available to your constituents?"_ At this point, Thea would usually excuse herself and Felicity would grab his hand and lead him to bed, showing him how much _she_ liked his ass and giving him a much pleasanter way to spend the remainder of the evening. They would wind up breathless and sated, and he fell in love with her a little more each time.

He let himself recall the previous night now as he stood on the podium looking out at the sea of cameras. This conference was almost over - the questions had been the usual and he'd survived them well enough. He was looking forward to getting back to the loft and having a quiet dinner with Felicity, followed by a repeat of the last evening's activities. He could see her standing in the back of the room, looking confident and reassuring. For whatever reason, the reporters had not made her a target for their scrutiny during his campaign – or at least not yet. Thea's theory was that they were intimidated by her reputation for intelligence. Alex thought the press didn't want to look like bullies for ganging up on a young, pretty woman who had so recently recovered from a near-fatal shooting. Oliver wasn't sure that either of them was right, but he was grateful that Felicity had so far escaped that gauntlet.

He returned his attention to the press conference. It was time to wrap the damn thing up.

"Thank you for coming," he said to the reporters, "I'll take one last question…"

A woman reporter he hadn't recalled seeing before stepped closer to the podium and called out, "Mr. Queen – can you tell us who you go to see on your trips to Central City? Who are the woman and the boy?" She held out a notebook-paper-sized photo, clearly showing him with William and Samantha. The three of them were standing by her car, his hand resting lightly on William's shoulder. They were smiling, and they looked very much like a family.

Oliver froze.

His first thought was that he had been so careful. He and William had stayed away from local parks, trips to the movies or any public place where he might be recognized. They had mostly remained in William's room, reading books and talking about school or his son's favorite superheroes. William had seemed fine with that. He was a quiet kid with tremendous ability to focus for his age; Oliver had been the opposite - boisterous, always bouncing from one thing to another.

For the life of him, he couldn't figure out how such a photo could have been taken. He opened his mouth to explain it away, but nothing came to mind.

And then the barrage of questions came.

" _What are their names, Mr. Queen?"_

" _How often do you go to see them in Central city?"_

" _What is your relationship to them? Are they your family?"_

" _They boy looks a little like you. Are you related? Is he your son?"_

" _You and Ms. Smoak became engaged a couple of months ago. What is her relationship to the woman and the boy? Are you two still planning to get married?"_

With that question, the reporters immediately turned to look for Felicity in the crowded expanse of the room. Already knowing where she was and with the height advantage of the podium, Oliver quickly located her face. He wasn't sure what to expect – confusion, shock, anger? It was an incredibly unfair situation. Of all the ways to learn about her fiancé's visits to his heretofore unknown son, this had to be the worst. There were at least thirty pairs of eyes on her, none of them friendly, all waiting to capture her reaction.

She didn't give it to them. Oliver was well aware of Felicity's ability to keep secrets, but he didn't realize until this moment that she could also be a very good actress. Whether it was years of covering for Team Arrow or just plain old bloody-mindedness not to give the press a story, her face was thoughtful and calm, if slightly flushed. She stared over the heads of the reporters up at him, and he saw nothing but support in her expression. She appeared so poised and steady that he wondered if she had somehow discovered William on her own and had been waiting for him to tell her. It was certainly not beyond her capabilities. At any rate, he felt incredibly proud of her for not turning an already bad circumstance into a complete debacle. The reporters, on the other hand, looked disappointed. They had been hoping for a show.

Oliver felt the knot in his stomach loosen a little. Felicity appeared to be handling the news more sanguinely than he'd anticipated. If they could just get home and talk, they should be all right - they'd been through much worse. Of course, there was still a good chance she was going to chew him out in her loud voice, but the important thing right now was to get away from this horrible conference and be together.

Alex came to the rescue. While the reporters had been staring at Felicity, he had worked his way to the front of the room and stepped up next to Oliver on the podium. He promptly nudged Oliver away from the microphone, cleared his throat loudly and said, "Excuse me." The journalists' heads snapped away from Felicity, back in Oliver's direction. "Mr. Queen is not prepared to discuss the woman and her child at this time, and asks that you respect their privacy," Alex said with authority. "We'll issue a statement shortly. Thank you very much for coming." And with that, he elbowed Oliver off the podium and muttered under his breath, "You better have a damned good explanation."

Oliver chose to ignore him. Despite Felicity's composed reaction, he couldn't help feeling that time was of the essence – that he had to get to her before her agile imagination turned this into something more than it was, like an affair or a second family. He had hated lying to her – _hated it_ – but as time had passed, the enormity of the lie and the repercussions of owning up to it had grown to a point where it was harder and harder to come up with an acceptable explanation. He'd had plenty of opportunities to tell her, but none of them had felt right. Now his hand had been forced.

He tried to move quickly in her direction, but the reporters were crowding around him, blocking his path and making it difficult to walk. He lost sight of her bright blonde head. Feeling a mild sense of panic, he fought the urge to punch out the two guys in front of him waving pocket-sized recorders. As it was, he let his elbows swing out and he saw one reporter grimace and double over. Suddenly Thea was at his side, holding his arm, forcing him to look at her.

"Ollie?" Her face showed the confusion that he had expected to see on Felicity's.

"Thea…not now. I need to talk to Felicity."

She didn't let go of his arm. With the certainty of one who had spent twenty years growing up with him, she said abruptly, "She didn't know, did she?"

He shook his head minutely, not wanted to have this conversation in front of the reporters. "Thea, I will call you later. It's…complicated. For now, we both should get out of here."

She looked like she had a lot of things she wanted to say, but at the last minute just nodded. After giving him one more puzzled glance she moved off into the crowd, no doubt looking for Alex. Oliver returned to searching for Felicity.

She was gone.

His insides clenched. Maybe she wasn't taking this as calmly as he'd thought - it wasn't like her to leave without him, especially not when she knew Darhk's Ghosts were still out there. Pushing past the reporters, he charged out of the doors and onto the street. Their limo was waiting in its usual spot, the members of the security detail assembled by Digg standing on the sidewalk looking slightly bored. There was no sign of Felicity in the car. Oliver kicked himself for not asking John to cover the conference personally. There was no way John would have let Felicity take off by herself.

"Have you seen Ms. Smoak?" he demanded of one of the bodyguards.

"She said she would take a cab home," the man replied, too casually for Oliver's taste. Seeing Oliver's expression, he hastily added, "Jay went with her, Mr. Queen. She'll be fine."

One guard. She had one fucking bodyguard protecting her. Oliver wanted to scream at the man that there was nothing fine about that, that one guard could do squat against the Ghosts. But screaming wouldn't do any good and at least she was headed back to the loft – that was something. "Okay, let's go there, too," he ordered, climbing into the back of the limo. As they pulled into the street, he grabbed the phone from his pocket and called her. The call flipped immediately to voicemail. He tried again with the same result.

The twenty minute ride home felt both interminable and too short. He wanted to see her, but didn't know what in hell he could say when he did. He knew he could reassure her about Samantha's role in his life – or lack of it; it was his deception that was going to be the problem. As he rode the elevator to their apartment he decided that the best thing would be to let her start – to yell, to cry, to do whatever she had to do. Once she had hit him with everything he deserved, then maybe he could try to explain.

He opened the door to the loft cautiously. The lights were on, but she wasn't in the main room – nor in the kitchen or anywhere on the first floor. There was no sign of the bodyguard. She must have sent him away.

"Felicity?"

No response. His voice echoed loudly in the loft and something felt really wrong. He ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Like the first floor, the lights were on in their bedroom but she wasn't there. He thought for a second that she might be taking a bath – a hot soak was often her refuge when she had had a particularly tough day - but the door to the master bath was open and it was empty, too.

That's when he noticed that they were gone – the pair of pajamas that she kept bundled up next to her pillow. He stepped into the bathroom and saw that a few of her basic toiletries were also missing; toothbrush, contact lens solution, hairbrush. An icy chill ran up his spine. He returned to the bedroom and flung open the closet door. He breathed a sigh of relief when her clothes were there, but the fear returned when he noted that her small overnight bag wasn't. She had left. He looked anxiously around the room, but there was no note, no hint of where she might be headed.

Oliver felt a small spark of anger. Yes he'd screwed up – royally – but they were in a committed relationship, and in relationships you were supposed to stay and work things out. Running away without talking to him wasn't going to solve anything. And whatever she might think of him at the moment, Felicity should especially know that it was not a good time to disappear and give the team something more to worry about. They had enough on their plates without a member going AWOL and putting herself in danger.

But… in all fairness… he was pretty sure she did know that. And she probably _had_ talked to someone – just someone who wasn't him.

He picked up his phone and called Diggle. Most women would confide in a girlfriend when they were upset with their fiancé, but Felicity didn't have a long list of girlfriends. Oliver couldn't see her talking to Laurel – they worked together well, but they'd never become very close. Thea had still been at the press conference when he'd left. And Caitlin Snow, who was probably the nearest thing to a BFF that Felicity had, lived 600 miles away. No…Oliver figured if she'd called anyone, it would be Digg.

His assumption was confirmed when John immediately answered with, "You fucked up big time, Oliver."

Oliver closed his eyes. "I know that, John. Is she with you?"

"No. She said she needed a little time by herself to think."

"And you let her go? It's not safe."

"She's in a pretty secure area, Oliver, and she's not far. I can be there in ten minutes if she needs me."

Oliver frowned - if she needed _Digg?_ What exactly had she told John, and why had Digg made it sound like she wouldn't need Oliver? He shook his head. "I don't understand, John. I get that she's upset about the press conference, but this is Felicity we're talking about. It's not like her to take off. She should have stayed to talk to me – to tell me to get my head out of my ass, if nothing else. Why is she off on her own?"

Digg snorted loudly, "This from the guy who flew back to Lian Yu after the Undertaking? You of all people, Oliver, should appreciate her needing space when her world has been turned upside down." His voice lowered and he said more gently, "Just…let her have it. I'm sure she'll be ready to talk soon." There was a pause, then Digg added cautiously, "She said it looks like you have some kind of second family in Central City – that the reporters had a picture of you with a woman and a boy. Is that true?" He sounded as if he were trying _not_ to jump to conclusions.

Oliver appreciated the effort. He sighed, "Yes and no, John. The boy is my son. I have no relationship with the woman – we were a one-time hookup ten years ago, well before the island. William is the result. I learned about him when we were in Central City fighting Vandal Savage." God, it felt good to finally tell someone.

Digg was silent for a moment. "Vandal Savage was months ago, Oliver," he said flatly and not too kindly. "It didn't occur to you to tell any of us, not even your fiancée?"

"It's complicated."

"Yeah, everything with you is."

Oliver rubbed his forehead, trying to make the tension go away. He certainly owed John an explanation, but right now Felicity was more important. "John, please," he pleaded, "I know I screwed up, but I need to talk with Felicity as soon as possible. I know her - she's imagining this is more than it is. I don't want her spending an entire night thinking about something that isn't true. _Please_ , just tell me where she is."

Diggle sighed and waited so long that Oliver thought he might actually divulge her location. When he spoke, however, he sounded apologetic but determined. "I'm sorry - I can't do that, Oliver. I gave her my word. I love you – with everything that's going on with Andy you're my brother more than ever, and I want to see you happy." Oliver heard him swallow, then clear his throat. "But I love Felicity, too, every bit as much. It kills me to see you both in this place, especially after all you've been through, but I have to respect her wishes." There was a note of finality in John's voice. Oliver knew he wouldn't change his mind.

"Okay, Digg. Just…please…make sure she's safe."

"I will, Oliver." And Digg hung up.

Oliver sat down on the bed – _their_ bed. What John had said about giving Felicity space sounded fair, but Oliver knew it was a mistake. Felicity wasn't him - her usual approach to problems was to confront them head on, not run away. He didn't think any good was going to come from her spending time on her own.

After debating with himself for several minutes, he picked up his phone and sent her a text.

 _Spoke with John. This is not what you think and we need to talk. Where are you?_

Nothing came back.

Unable to leave it alone, Oliver texted one more time: _Please be safe._

That night had to be one of the longest in Oliver's life. He couldn't help but compare it to his first night on Lian Yu, when he believed he was the only one on the island and didn't know if he'd survive the next twelve hours, let alone make it back home. As he'd done back then, he sat in the darkness and tried to will morning to arrive. It was the uncertainty, he realized, that made time stand still and the darkness drag on. On the island it had been the uncertainty of his physical existence. Now it was the uncertainty of his _life_ \- a real life that included a connection and commitment to someone who made him feel truly alive.

It hit him around 4:00 am. A secure area, Digg had said, ten minutes from his apartment. There was only one location he could think of that fit the bill. It was an odd place to pick, but at least it was a place they had shared. Maybe…maybe subconsciously, she wanted a connection. He slipped on his shoes, splashed cold water on his face and grabbed his keys.

The combination to the foundry door had not changed. Most of the lights must have been removed, however, because nothing happened when he flicked the switch at the top of the stairs. He peered down into the darkness and thought he could see a faint glow in one corner.

"Felicity?"

His voice echoed softly off the concrete walls. For a second he thought he had imagined seeing the light.

"Oliver." Her voice was little more than a whisper.

He ran down the stairs, half tripping in his haste. She was sitting on one of the old training mats in a corner, a battery-powered lantern cutting weakly into the darkness. She was wearing her pajamas, covered by one of his old hoodies. Her face, what he could see of it, was pale and tired. There were blankets strewn about as if she'd made an attempt at sleeping but then, like him, had given up.

"Felicity." He moved to pull her into a hug and she flinched.

 _Flinched_.

Her response stopped him cold, and he felt a flicker of fear in his gut. He wondered how badly he'd misjudged her reaction. She didn't look ready to chew him out. Hell, she didn't even look angry or upset. She just looked resigned, and maybe a little afraid –and he didn't know what he was supposed to do with that. He remembered his original plan to let her talk first, and lowered himself to the mat, his eyes never leaving her face. He waited.

She wouldn't look at him, and spent a long time studying her hands as they lay in her lap. "Do you love her?" she asked at last. There was no rancor in her voice, no emotion at all really.

He frowned. "What? Love who?"

"That woman in the photo. Do you love her?"

He tried to keep the panic out of his voice. "No, Felicity, of course I don't love her. I love you, you know that." She still wouldn't look at him.

"Then who is she?"

Oliver took a deep breath. "She's someone I met years ago, before the island."

"Why are you going to Central City to see her now?"

He searched carefully for words. "I'm not going to see _her_. I'm going to see the boy." He took a deep breath, "You know I was different… back when I was younger…especially when it came to women. I didn't do relationships…at least not serious relationships. I just …"

"Slept with a lot of girls."

He grimaced, "Yeah…slept with a lot of girls." He tried to meet her eyes, but she was still staring resolutely at her hands. "Anyway, Samantha was one of those girls. Only, she got pregnant and William…well, William is my son."

She let his words soak in for a minute. "Why didn't you ever tell me about him?"

"I didn't know. Back then, Samantha told me she had lost the baby and I never had a reason to think otherwise. I happened to see them in a coffee house in Central City recently, and I couldn't help but wonder."

Felicity said carefully, "Recently? When did you see them?" He could almost see her running through dates in her head.

"When we were helping out Kendra."

There was silence while she finished the math. When she finally looked at him it was as if he'd confirmed her worst fear. "Oliver, that was _months_ ago," she said, and he at last heard a little emotion in her voice, a little of _his_ Felicity. " _That_ was why you were acting so strangely? I asked you about it…I asked you several times…and you said it was nothing. You said it was nothing." She buried her face in her hands and shook her head, her burst of emotion over. "I don't understand why you didn't tell me," she said wearily. "Have I ever given you a reason to think you can't talk to me? We're engaged to be married - we're not supposed to keep things from each other."

Oliver sighed. "Samantha – she made me promise," he explained. "It was a condition of being able to see William…that I couldn't tell anyone that he is my son. She didn't want him getting caught up in what she considers to be my craziness. And after the Ghosts tried to kill you and me, keeping him secret didn't seem like such a bad idea."

"Samantha made you promise," Felicity repeated slowly.

"Yes."

She gave him an incredulous look. "So why didn't you make the promise and tell me? Oliver, you _know_ I can keep a secret. I could have even helped."

"Felicity, I gave her my word."

As soon as he'd said it, he realized his mistake. The sentence hung there, and he knew exactly what she was thinking. She stared at him a long time and her voice was ineffably sad when she said, "And that's the thing I keep going back to, the thing that I can't ignore. I can deal with you having a son. But I'm not sure I can deal with you keeping a secret with another woman – knowing it was more important to you to keep your word to her, than to me." In the dim light her eyes were luminous. He knew it was tears.

He tried to recover. "Felicity…no…you shouldn't look at it that way. It's not like we were having an affair. This was about seeing my _son._ I just…" He stopped trying to explain because – really - what could he say? She was right. How did he justify keeping his word to a woman he barely knew and lying to the woman he loved?

Her tears began to fall. "I've loved you a long time, Oliver," she said, her voice cracking. "Even when I wouldn't admit it to John or to myself, I was in love with you." She shook her head, a tired smile on her face. "For most of that time, you weren't interested. You were either involved with someone else or you didn't think you could be in a relationship. At some point I put you into the _unattainable dream_ category in my mind."

"I was an idiot."

Her tears didn't cease. "When you finally did decide that you loved me…well, it was the dream coming true, and I almost couldn't believe it. Every day felt like spring, full of sunshine." She reached out to take his hand, but then stopped herself. "These last few months have been the happiest of my life…even getting shot wasn't too bad because you were there to help me get better. I really believed that we were good together, that we were _right_ together."

"Felicity, we _are_ …"

She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. She looked at him earnestly through wet lashes. "I thought I was going to be the exception, the woman Oliver Queen would love for the rest of his life _, be true to_ for the rest of his life." She shook her head. "But sometimes dreams end. I guess I always figured if anything came between us it would be Arrow-stuff, not another woman."

"Felicity, will you stop? You know everything you said is true. I _do_ love you and I _will_ love you for the rest of our lives. I do not care for Samantha and she's not something that's between us. You _have_ to know that."

"Then why did you lie to me and not her?" She put her face back in her hands and he saw her shoulders shake, although she made no sound. She stayed that way for a good minute, fighting for composure. When she looked back up at him, he was frightened. She looked like she had made some kind of decision. "Oliver, I don't think I can be with you right now. I don't trust you and…clearly…you don't trust me." She took a deep breath. "You should stay in the loft. It's really yours, anyway. I'll figure something out."

No…this could not be happening! He had to stop it. "Felicity! _Please ._..I told you I don't love her…this is only about my son." Oliver felt the hot sting of tears in his own eyes, " _Please_ don't say you're ending us because of one lie."

She shook her head, "I don't know what I'm doing, Oliver. I just know I can't be with you right now. Maybe we moved too fast with the engagement, maybe we both need to reassess what we want in a relationship. But for the moment, can you please just leave me? It …hurts…to be near you. We can talk more some other time." And she turned away from him, pulling a blanket around herself like a shield.

Feeling helpless, not wanting to leave but not knowing what else he could do, Oliver slowly got to his feet and somehow got himself out of the foundry.

Some other time turned out to be never. For the first couple of weeks Oliver called her daily, but the phone always went to voicemail and she never called him back. Returning one day from Central City, he walked into the loft to find the closets emptied of her clothes and her engagement ring sitting on the bedside table. He wept that day, like he hadn't wept since he was a kid. The immensity of spending the rest of his life without her was overwhelming.

The day Felicity Smoak moved out was the day Oliver Queen learned that lies occupy space. They filled the seat in the lair that used to be Felicity's; they crammed much of the closet that once held her clothes; and, worst of all, they overtook the bed they had shared – leaving him a tiny sliver of mattress, where he never got much sleep anyhow. Lie-space shared the properties of gases that he vaguely remembered hearing about in high school physics – expanding and contracting depending on the conditions.

During the day, it wasn't too bad. His campaign was successful and he was elected mayor. He found that carrying out the duties of his office, meeting with the myriad folks that needed something from him along with continuing his Arrow activities at night, made the space contract. Now that he'd been outed as William's father, Samantha also allowed the boy to come to Star City once or twice a month to spend a weekend with him. Oliver furnished one of the upstairs rooms for William, and the bright presence of his son with his toys and books was particularly effective at reclaiming space taken over by the lie. But on nights when Oliver returned to an empty loft, when he was too tired to keep himself busy any longer, that space would expand until there was no room for anything else.

He wondered whether Felicity had noticed the same phenomenon. If she had, she never showed it. Not that he saw her personally, but she often made the nightly business news. As one of the country's youngest and more successful CEO's, she was Wall Street's darling – he saw her face frequently on the cover of Fortune, Forbes or BusinessWeek, looking bright and confident. She named Curtis her Chief Technology Officer and the two of them were credited with Palmer's double-digit increase in sales and profits. She still lived in Star City, but somehow their paths never crossed. She had a brilliant head of public relations who managed all interactions between Palmer and the mayor's office, and she generally delegated participation in local charity events to one of her C-suite subordinates.

He knew that Digg saw her regularly. Once in a while Oliver would arrive at the lair to find their software had been upgraded or some kind of new weaponry was available for testing. He was sure John had carefully coordinated her visit, timing it for when Oliver was otherwise engaged. One day while Digg was training, Oliver was surprised to glance at his phone and see photos of Felicity as the camera roll automatically scrolled. There were a couple of her and Lyla goofing around in the kitchen, and a lot of her with little Sara. He particularly liked the one of Felicity giving Sara a bath, soap suds dripping from her glasses as the toddler grinned cheekily.

He looked up to find Digg standing over his shoulder. "She looks happy," he said softly, meaning Felicity.

Digg shook his head, "She isn't. She's like you. She works crazy hours, gets too little sleep, then gets up and does it all over again. Not much of a life."

Oliver said tiredly, "I kept trying to call her, John, I really did - but she never called back."

"I know, Oliver. Some hurts are harder to get over than others, and she was really hurt by that lie."

"You think she'll ever get over it?"

Digg said quietly, "I hope so. I may not look it, Oliver, but I'm a romantic. I still think you two belong together, and I pray to God you both figure it out in my lifetime."

That night when Oliver got home, he slept on the couch. The lie had completely taken over the bed.

The call came a few weeks later in the early evening while Oliver was still at work. Most of his staff had left for the day, but he had a few proposals yet to read and it wasn't as if there was anything waiting for him at home. When he answered the phone, one of the security guards on the round-the-clock protection detail he'd hired let him know what had happened. The poor guy was so nervous about delivering bad news to the mayor that it took several tries and a lot of encouragement from Oliver before he could get the words out. Ironically, it wasn't Darhk's Ghosts, the League, or any of the other enemies Oliver constantly worried about that was responsible; instead, it was an accident - a kid in his father's pickup truck, texting while driving much too fast.

Killed instantly, the guard told him – both of them, in a head-on collision. Samantha and his son were gone. Dumbfounded, Oliver stupidly thanked the guard for delivering his terrible news before hanging up the phone and smashing his laptop.

The next couple of days brought periods of intense pain alternating with spells of complete numbness. Oliver hadn't thought about his mother in a while, but he wondered now if this was how she'd felt when she was informed _her_ son was dead. He remembered her saying there was no comparison – nothing that could equal the anguish of losing a child. She was right.

Samantha didn't have much family - her parents were both gone and she had one brother who worked halfway around the world. The funeral arrangements fell to Oliver and he felt simultaneously grateful and paralyzed by having a responsibility at this time. The mechanics of the phone calls and making the decisions (minister, flowers, obituary) gave him something to do, and when he couldn't manage it any longer, Thea took over the details. They held the funeral in Central City, the place where William had spent his entire life.

The day itself was lovely. The mid-morning sun was warm but not hot, and between Samantha's girlfriends and William's teachers, classmates and their parents, there were a respectable number of funeral-goers in the cemetery. Oliver listened to the minister's words and everyone's expressions of condolences and found, oddly, that they did bring some kind of comfort. The 600 mile distance had hampered some of his friends in Star City, but Lyla and John had come, and Barry and the crew from S.T.A.R. Labs were there as well.

He was sure he'd been the last to leave the graveside, making a point of letting everyone get well ahead of him as they headed toward their cars, so he was surprised to turn and see one lone figure still back at the site. It was a woman, but from his considerable distance Oliver didn't recognize her as anyone he knew. She wore a dark coat and her head was covered. He saw her toss something into the grave, then start walking in a direction opposite from the rest of the mourners.

It took a minute for it to click- the Jewish custom of tossing earth into the grave.

She'd come - she'd been there the whole time. John, of course, would have told her what had happened, told her about the arrangements. And she'd come. He wondered briefly why she hadn't offered him condolences like everyone else, but then realized it would have been incredibly awkward on a day that didn't need any more awkwardness. It made sense but – somehow – he felt a little disappointed. He watched her move unevenly toward a car parked a considerable distance away, struggling a bit on the soft grass with those ridiculously high heels that she favored.

Without thinking he started to move in her direction, breaking from a walk into a run when he couldn't close the distance fast enough. She didn't turn, didn't hear him coming.

"Felicity?"

She spun around, startled. He couldn't help but notice that she'd gotten thinner – too thin. For a second she looked embarrassed, but then sorrow took over her face – genuine sorrow, not the rehearsed expression people assumed when they didn't know what to say at funerals.

"Oliver, I'm so sorry. John told me what happened. I…know you must be devastated." The breeze blew the dark silk scarf on her head and a few wisps of blonde hair escaped.

He met her eyes and, to his relief, she didn't look away. "I'm…I'm not sure what I'm feeling, to be honest, Felicity. There are still moments when it doesn't seem real. A week ago he was…we were together in Star City. Now he's…" He stopped suddenly, partly from the pain but mostly from the fear of driving her away with too much candor. It was odd. They hadn't seen each other in months and this moment should have been the epitome of uncomfortable. But, somehow, it felt appropriate and he wanted it to last. He didn't want her to walk away. He kept talking. "I…I wanted to thank you for coming. It was…kind of you to find time. I know you must have a crazy schedule."

"He was your son, Oliver; of course I was going to come."

"Thank you."

They lapsed into silence, and he studied her face while she studied his. Other than being too thin, she looked the same – kind, intelligent and empathetic. As always, he could see that her mind was busy and he found himself desperately wanting to know her thoughts. Was she looking for changes in him the same way he was looking for them in her? Was she formulating her polite excuses to leave? He watched the breeze ruffle the blonde hair that had escaped the scarf. For the life of him, he did not want to see her turn and walk back toward her car.

"There's something you could do to help," he said suddenly - the words coming out of his mouth before he had time to think. He knew this was typically _not_ what you said at funerals – you were supposed to thank people for coming but not actually ask anything of them. It was a good way to frighten them off.

But Felicity didn't run - she merely frowned and waited.

It was enough encouragement to continue. "One of William's teachers suggested that I donate his stuff to a local charity – one for foster kids. They always need clothes and toys and she said it's something William would have done. I think she's right." His eyes grew watery for a moment, but he quickly composed himself. "I still have to clean out his room, pack everything up for the charity. I've been dreading it." He stopped, then took a deep breath. "I'd really like it if you helped…I don't want to go through his stuff alone and I don't want to do it with a stranger."

She could have easily pointed out that he had other options – Thea, John, and Laurel came to mind – but, thankfully, she didn't. She gave him a long, considering look, then quietly said, "Okay, Oliver. I'll help."

He could hardly believe it. It was the first thing he'd heard in the last four days that hadn't hurt. He gave her Samantha's address and prayed the whole ride back to the house that she didn't change her mind.

She didn't. She arrived and mingled with the other mourners over finger sandwiches and coffee, spending most of her time with John and Lyla. And when everyone had offered their final condolences and left, she climbed the stairs with him to William's bedroom.

She took a good look around, then turned to him with one eyebrow raised.

He smiled weakly, "I may have gone a little overboard with the toys."

"You think?"

He shrugged, "I was making up for lost time. You can see why I need help packing." He walked over to the stack of boxes, pulled one off the top and tried to follow the usual, complicated set of unfold and tuck instructions that turned the flat piece of cardboard into a storage container.

She watched him struggle for a minute then said, "Here, give it to me." After a couple of dexterous turns and tucks, the box was assembled. She quickly made a few more. Then she kicked off her shoes and got down on the floor next to the toys and started examining them.

William would have been happy, he thought, with the care Felicity took with his things. He had been a meticulous kid, hating to break anything, and she wrapped his plastic action figures in tissue paper as if they were Waterford crystal. And, mercifully, she started talking. While everyone else had taken refuge in the same platitudes, Felicity asked Oliver direct questions about William; his favorite books ("Oh, I loved Encyclopedia Brown too"), his strongest and weakest subjects at school ("He hated math – I guess he _was_ your son"), and the sports teams he followed. Oliver found it wasn't too hard to answer her questions – in fact, he felt a little of his pain ease as they talked. His only regret about asking her to help this afternoon was realizing that Felicity and William probably would have liked each other a lot – and now they would never get the chance to meet.

They finished packing in a couple of hours, with Felicity neatly labeling each box with a felt marker. As they started stacking them against the wall, she held one aside, writing ' _Oliver'_ on top of it. He stared at the box in confusion.

"This one is yours, Oliver," she explained softly. "It has all his favorites – favorite books and action figures, and his baseball cards." When Oliver frowned, she continued quickly, "I know you may not feel like it now, but someday I think you might want these things."

He wasn't sure she was right but he didn't want to argue. Just being with her, talking to her for the last couple of hours had brought him a little bit of peace on a day when he had no business expecting any. He didn't want her to go and he could see that she was preparing to leave. She had slipped on her shoes and was looking toward her coat. He had to do something, say something to keep her with him a little longer. The only thing that came to mind was incredibly stupid, but what did he have to lose, really?

"Do you want to get dinner?" he asked abruptly.

She looked surprised and then anxious. There was a long list of ways she could have said 'no,' but she settled on, "I don't think I can, Oliver. I told my pilot I'd be back to the plane around 6:00 to return to Star City."

He almost laughed. Her answer was as inane as his question. He decided to call her on it. "The man works for you, Felicity. Call him and tell him you'll be a couple of hours late."

Her eyes narrowed. After a minute she said slowly, "Oliver, I don't think it's such a good idea, us having dinner. You're upset now…you've just lost your son…"

"And what? You think I wouldn't want to have dinner with you if William were still here?" He sounded a little angry and – dammit – he realized that he _was_ angry, with himself more than her. It dawned on him that he hadn't fought hard enough for her when she'd walked away months ago.

She hesitated, "That's not what I meant. It just…"

"Felicity," he interrupted, and all the arguments she'd never been there to listen to started spilling out. "There's not one day since we separated that I haven't thought about you at least twenty times – there's not one day I haven't missed you, even when I was with William. It's been months and it's not getting any easier." He decided to go for broke. "And I'm guessing it's been pretty much the same for you. You're too thin and you look tired."

Her cheeks flushed. "Thank you, Oliver."

"Felicity, I'll own up to it, even if you won't. I'm a mess." He ran his hand impatiently through his hair. "Can you honestly say that it's been better…us being apart? I know I hurt you, but is this long, dull ache really an improvement?" His voice was loud, but he didn't care. She looked flustered and uncertain – which was progress in his book. "I can't say that I won't ever screw up again, but isn't that part of relationships? You sometimes hurt someone without meaning to. You try to make it up to them and then you move forward."

"Oliver, I can't just go back and live with you as if nothing had happened."

"I'm not asking you to. I'm saying…I'm saying…" _What the hell did he want to say?_ "I'm saying I'll take you in my life any way I can get you. And if that's just dinner or coffee or your voice over the comms for now…that's _something._ " He shook his head, "But please, whatever you do, don't pretend that either one of us is better off with things the way they are."

She stared at him a long time, so long he worried that she was preparing to list all the reasons she thought they should stay separated. When she spoke, however, all she said was, "No, I won't pretend that."

He breathed a sigh of relief. "So…dinner then? This is the first time in four days I've felt like eating."

She nodded carefully, "Dinner."

Felicity meant what she said about not moving back in with him right away. They took things so slowly that sometimes he felt they were at a standstill. But over time, little changes started to add up; he'd walk in to find her upgrading the computers in the lair, or Palmer's head of public relations would inform the mayor's office that Ms. Smoak planned to attend the Glades charity event personally. One night he brought takeout to her office and it soon became a weekly thing - they would eat moo shu and talk about their day's events. She stopped looking too thin and he got a chance to see her dimples when she smiled. And, eventually, she began coming by the loft.

The first sign that the lie was truly contracting occurred when her favorite yogurt started occupying space on the refrigerator shelf. It retreated further when a few of her clothes ended up in the closet, followed by even more. When she agreed to spend the night, they both pushed the lie completely out of bed and he found himself sprawled across his side and into hers. And the day she put his ring back on her finger, the lie conceded its territory entirely.


	2. Momentum (The Mutual Friend)

Barry Allen liked and respected Oliver Queen, a fact he sometimes still found surprising. On paper, they didn't make sense as friends. Oliver grew up in wealth and privilege with two loving parents, while Barry was raised by a foster dad in much more modest circumstances. Oliver had dropped out of multiple colleges and, despite a brief stint as CEO of Queen Consolidated, had never really held down a job. Barry had gotten his bachelor's degree in three and a half years and was doggedly trying to earn respect as a forensic scientist with the Central City police department. Oliver walked into a room and women immediately began thinking up justifications for being unfaithful to their husbands. Barry walked into a room and women asked him if he was old enough to drink. They didn't appear to have a lot in common.

But if you peeled the outer layer off the onion that was their lives, they had similarities where it really mattered. Both had experienced tremendous hardship – hardship from which they had grown stronger, with a determination to help people. Both were supported by teams that were smart and loyal and not afraid to tell them when they had their heads up their asses. And, of course, both were maintaining secret identities. Barry had found early on that no one else could appreciate the complications of life behind a mask like another man who wore one. And Oliver had it particularly hard, because while The Flash was generally loved by the citizens of Central City, The Arrow often received mixed press in his hometown. Barry knew that Oliver risked his life solely on the conviction that he was doing good without expecting any gratitude. It was an admirable quality. And so despite their differences and Oliver's propensity for shooting arrows at him, Barry Allen liked and respected Oliver Queen. The man might be more stubborn than grass stains on white pants, but in the end he almost always did the right thing.

It never occurred to him that Oliver wouldn't tell Felicity about his son for exactly that reason – it was the right thing. After the do-over Barry had created by turning back time, he'd been certain that Oliver and Felicity would have a heart-to-heart when they returned to Star City following the battle with Vandal Savage. Those two had the kind of relationship that Barry hoped he would someday have; they supported each other, made decisions together, and clearly were very much in love. Even if Oliver had once held a misguided notion that he couldn't tell Felicity about William, Barry figured that the pig-headed idiot had seen the light when Barry revealed the consequences of not telling her – namely, Felicity leaving Oliver. That alone should have been enough to scare Oliver into getting it right after the reset button had been hit.

He got an inkling things hadn't worked out that way several weeks after Felicity and Oliver had been attacked. The communications he'd had with Oliver during those weeks had been almost nonexistent - Diggle had been the one to tell him about the shooting right after Felicity had been medevaced to Star City Hospital, and he had provided most of the updates on her condition since then. Oliver had been, in Diggle's words, "a real mess," sleeping at the hospital and running home only to shower and change. His mayoral campaign had been suspended, although the Green Arrow still made occasional appearances at night and seemed particularly focused on taking out Damien Darhk's Ghosts. It wasn't until Barry visited Felicity that he realized that she might be unaware of Oliver's son.

He went to see her a few days after she'd been released from the hospital. Felicity herself had called S.T.A.R. labs to tell the team she was home, nearly six weeks after the shooting. Barry's morning was shaping up to be pretty quiet – it was a Saturday and he hadn't been called to any crime scenes – so he decided to take a quick run to Star City for a visit. He was surprised when John Diggle's wife, Lyla, answered the door to the loft. He'd expected to see Oliver fussing over Felicity like a mother hen.

"Barry," Felicity's voice greeted him with a weak imitation of its usual energy. She was seated near the large windows overlooking the city, wearing a pair of pale blue pajamas with tiny penguins dotted over them. Her tablet was on the table next to her. "It's so good of you to come all this way – although, I suppose for you, it's really not far at all. I mean, 600 miles traveling at Mach whatever must get you here in…" She paused and Barry grinned as he sat next to her. It was good to hear her ramble, even if the ramble sounded a little frail. He sobered up, however, when her smile turned into a puzzled frown. "Not that I'm not happy to see you, but I'm a little surprised you came today when you're supposed to be meeting up with Oliver." She glanced at the clock on the wall. "I guess you still have plenty of time to run back and catch him when he gets to Central City."

He blinked. Oliver was coming to Central City to see _him_? Had he missed that? Without thinking, he asked the question out loud – "Oliver's coming to see me?" - and could have kicked himself when he saw her reaction.

Her body began to tense up and she stared at him, her brow wrinkled in confusion and worry. "Yes, I'm pretty sure he said he was going to Central City today. He got up early to take the train. Something about talking to you about Darhk's ghosts." She turned to Lyla and said slowly, "I know I'm on all kinds of pain meds, but I don't think I imagined it. It's the first time since the…incident… that he's been willing to take any time away. I thought that was a good thing." She shifted stiffly in her seat, grimacing as she sat a little straighter. "So - he _didn't_ call you?" she asked Barry.

Lyla put a hand on her shoulder and shot Barry a warning look. He understood instantly. The look said: _No matter what you're thinking, say something to put her at_ _ease. Now is not the time to cause her anxiety._

Barry did his best. He hoped his smile didn't look too fake when he said, "Oh my God, is today _Saturday_?" Felicity nodded. "Oh, Felicity, I _completely_ forgot about Oliver," he lied. "Yes, he called me. Between new cases at CCPD and Flash…activities…I didn't realize it was the weekend already. It slipped my mind but it's not a problem. Like you said, I can get back to Central City in plenty of time." He glanced toward Lyla and she acknowledged his effort with a very subtle smile.

And he must have been a little bit convincing, because Felicity's anxious expression eased and the tautness left her body as she slumped back in her chair. She exhaled, "Okay…well, phew. I'm sorry to get all nervous on you, but Oliver hasn't exactly been himself lately. He's been pretty angry about…" she gestured at herself, plainly meaning her injuries. "And when Oliver and John are _both_ out of sight I really worry about what the pair of them are up to. They think they can take on anything." She looked toward Lyla and the two women exchanged knowing glances.

"I don't think you need to worry today, Felicity," Lyla said gently. "John's at home with Sara and you know he wouldn't leave our daughter. It sounds like Oliver and Barry just got their wires crossed."

Well, one of us did anyway, Barry thought.

Felicity glanced between the two of them and seemed to buy it.

Barry, of course, knew better. There was someone else Oliver had reason to visit in Central City – someone he apparently _hadn't_ mentioned to Felicity. It didn't take a PhD to figure out that Oliver had gone there to see his son. Dammit, why hadn't he told her? Now Barry was in the uncomfortable position of having to lie for him – and he really wasn't a good liar. He looked into Felicity's sincere blue eyes, hating himself for asking, "Did Oliver say what time we were meeting? I seem to have forgotten that, too."

She shook her head, "No, but he got the zero dark thirty train this morning, so my guess is he'll be there sometime around 11:00."

Barry looked at his watch – 10:30; plenty of time to get to Central City and talk to Oliver…no to _confront_ Oliver. Barry didn't like Oliver's lie. It was stupid, especially considering the consequences the first time he had tried it. Ultimately, however, Barry knew this was between Oliver and Felicity and he had no right to interfere. What angered him – where he _did_ have a right to be ticked off - was Oliver's decision to involve him in the deception. Without his agreement, Oliver was forcing him to sustain the lie or else hurt Felicity, one of his dearest friends. Oliver needed to know that he wouldn't stand for that.

He stood up. "Okay, then. Sorry to cut the visit short, Felicity, but I'd think I better run. I don't want to be late and I _really_ want to make sure I catch up with Oliver. I'll come back soon, I promise." He bent down to give her a light kiss on the cheek.

"Thanks for coming, Barry."

Lyla walked him to the door. When they were out of earshot, she said quietly, "You're going to find out what he's up to? It's not like him to lie to Felicity."

Barry nodded. "I've already got a pretty good idea."

* * *

Barry's anger must have given him an extra burst of energy for his run back to Central City, because he made it in record time. When he arrived, he sent Oliver a brief text.

 _Since you told Felicity you were coming to see me, I suggest we make it the truth. Meet me at Jitters at 11:30._

He didn't have to wait long for a response.

 _I've already got plans, but I can see you around 4:00 before I catch the train home._

Barry gritted his teeth. The man always had to have things his way, even when he really didn't have a leg to stand on. It was one of his most annoying traits. He typed quickly.

 _Change your plans. I just covered for you with your girlfriend and I'm not happy about it. Don't make me regret it any more than I already do._

There was a lengthy pause.

 _Fine. 11:30._

When Oliver arrived at Jitters, Barry expected him to look a little bit sheepish. After all, he had put his friend in the uncomfortable position of being his cover story without asking first. As far as Barry was concerned, Oliver owed him one, and he was anticipating a reluctant but genuine apology. (Was there ever any apology from Oliver that wasn't reluctant?) Once they got that out of the way, they could talk about how to end this farce.

The man who walked in the door, however, actually had the balls to look angry and slightly indignant. He strode over to Barry's table, the familiar stubborn gleam in his eyes. "You can spare me the lecture, Barry," Oliver said without preamble, "I get that I put you in a difficult spot this morning. But I didn't know that you were planning to visit Felicity today. It won't happen again."

So much for an apology. Barry felt his own anger rekindling and he quickly snapped back, "Are you saying that if you'd known I was going to see Felicity, you would have warned me that I was your excuse for coming to Central City?" He shook his head. "You're missing the point, Oliver." Oliver's stubborn gleam turn into an outright glare, no doubt perfected from years of staring down Star City criminals. A young waitress picked that moment to approach the table for their order; she took one look at their expressions and made an abrupt about-face.

As she walked away, Oliver gave an exaggerated sigh. "Enlighten me, Barry. What exactly is the point?"

"The point is that you never told Felicity about your son. We talked about it when you left here a couple of months ago. I thought I was pretty clear about the consequences of you keeping it from her the first time – it ended your relationship. I can't believe you didn't tell her when you had a second chance, especially knowing what's at stake." Barry paused and tried to assume a more evenhanded tone, tried to make the conversation more reasonable. "Given how happy you are with her…well, I thought you'd want to do anything to protect your relationship," he said quietly.

Oliver was not mollified. "My relationship with Felicity is just that, Barry," he said tensely. "It's mine _…my_ business. Not yours."

Barry leaned forward. "Normally I'd agree, Oliver, but you made it _my_ business when you involved me in your lie." He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "Do you know how crappy I felt having to sit there and feed her bullshit this morning, especially after all she's been through? She's one of the… _truest_ …people I know. It was wrong on so many levels."

Oliver opened his mouth and then paused as Barry's words sunk in. For all his bluster, it was clear that Oliver felt no better than Barry about deceiving her. When he spoke, some of the edge was off his voice. "Look, I'm not exactly loaded with good options here, Barry," he said at last. "Samantha made not telling anyone a condition of being able to see William. Hell, _he_ doesn't even know I'm his dad – as far as he's concerned, I'm just a friend of his mom's. I'm not happy about this either, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do - I feel like I'm being forced to choose between my son and my girlfriend."

"Fiancee."

"Fine, my Fiancee."

Barry shook his head, "I don't think that's the case, Oliver. I think you're overcomplicating this." He bit back the urge to add _as you always do_. Instead he said, "Felicity has proven for the last three years that she can keep your secrets, under some pretty tough circumstances. You can trust her not to tell anyone about your son - not even Digg, if that's what you want."

Oliver stared at Barry, the last of his anger receding. "I have no doubt that she can keep a secret," he said slowly, "But is it really the right thing – is it being fair to her? Think about what I'd be asking her to do. I'd be telling her that I have this whole other part of my life – a son – that she can't share in because I promised his mother that I wouldn't tell anyone." Oliver ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "That's gotta hurt. I'm afraid it could eventually come between us."

"So what's your alternative? Keep seeing him in secret until he's grown up? Oliver, this is going to come to light sometime or other. Felicity's not herself right now, but when she fully recovers she's going to figure out that something's up when you keep disappearing. And the longer you hide this from her, the worse it's going to be when she finds out. She'll think you don't trust her."

Oliver stared at his hands, tightly clasped on the table, for so long that Barry thought he wasn't going to respond. It was apparent that he'd run through these arguments many times in his head. "Yeah…I know you're right, Barry," he allowed at last. "And I will tell her. But… can we agree that now is not the right time? I mean, you saw her." He closed his eyes briefly. "For days I wasn't sure she was going to make it, and she's still pretty fragile. I just want her back to her old self…her real self…and then I can figure out how to talk to her about this." He looked up at Barry. "I can't lose her. With what we do," he gestured between the two of them, "sometimes I think she's the only thing that keeps me… _me_." His eyes grew thoughtful, and Barry felt a brief twinge of envy – a desire to have that same kind of connection with another person.

He looked at Oliver's worried eyes and said, "Okay. I agree now is not the time. But as soon as she's a little stronger, Oliver, you gotta tell her."

"I will."

* * *

Felicity's recovery from her injuries was uneven – a typical case of two steps forward and one step back. Some days she had more energy than others, some days the pain was severe enough to keep her creeping slowly about the loft. But over time, things progressed. Her voice regained its liveliness and her face lost its pallor. She went into work for half days, then started throwing in a few whole days. And eventually she began coming to the lair and resuming her role as mission control on the comms. The lift in Oliver's spirits paralleled her recovery perfectly.

Barry visited as often as he could while she recuperated. He sometimes felt the urge to laugh when he watched Oliver with Felicity. If only the criminals of Star City who were terrified of the Green Arrow could see him as he carried her up and down the stairs, fussed with her blankets, and helped her brush her thick, wavy hair. Once, when Oliver was in the kitchen preparing lunch, Felicity kicked off her slippers and cheerfully pointed to the toes that he had just painted a bright pink for her. Barry asked Diggle if he was ever tempted to tease Oliver about this nurturing, domestic aspect of his personality. Digg gave him a long look and replied that as a man who valued marital bliss, it was never a good idea to mock another guy for taking care of his partner. So Barry refrained from giving Oliver a hard time, despite being sorely tempted.

Unfortunately, with all that Oliver was doing for Felicity, it was apparent to Barry that there was one thing that he hadn't done – and that was tell her about his son. Initially, Barry understood. Oliver was right about the severity of her injuries and her need to focus on recovery. Every activity that she was able to resume – climbing the stairs, washing her hair, driving the car – was a victory the couple celebrated together. But as weeks passed and she was clearly regaining her strength, Barry began to wonder if Oliver had changed his mind about telling her. Any time the topic of Central City came up Oliver would flash him a dark look, and Barry knew that he had to say as little as possible. His visits became increasingly uncomfortable, and a few times he caught Felicity glancing between him and Oliver as if she were sensing a problem. Eventually, he found himself resenting Oliver and wanting to avoid Felicity.

It was during this time that Barry Allen discovered that lies have momentum; that once created, they keep moving and gaining energy. Lies built upon themselves like a snowball rolling down a long, white-blanketed slope, growing bigger and heavier with every revolution. You began with one lie to one person…and pretty soon there were two…and then four. This lie, for example, had started simply enough – he couldn't tell Felicity the real reason for Oliver's trips to Central City. But then his team at S.T.A.R labs began to notice that his behavior was off; he didn't want to ask The Arrow for help even when it was clearly needed, and conversations with Oliver were markedly terse. When Caitlin and Cisco questioned him about it...well, he had to lie to them, too. At some point it felt like every conversation with or about Team Arrow involved an untruth. Barry was used to keeping secrets from strangers and police department colleagues, but this was a whole different ballgame. He hated it.

It eventually came to a head; it had to, really, because Barry had gotten to the verge of either kicking Oliver's ass or telling Felicity himself. Both turned out to be unnecessary. Felicity, fully back to one hundred percent, took matters into her own hands.

They were in pursuit of a meta-human who had bolted from Central City to Star City. The guy wasn't as evil as many of the meta's they'd encountered, but his ability to alter local gravitational fields was inconvenient at best and dangerous at worst. So far he'd limited himself to floating a couple of buses and forcing a few expensive objects to drift his way, but Barry worried that he would start pulling down planes or toppling buildings as he fully explored his powers. He had to be stopped.

The plan was simple enough. Barry would use his speed to steady the gravitational field just long enough for Oliver to shoot the meta with a tranquilizer arrow. Once the guy was sedated, they could bring him back to Central City for evaluation and rehabilitation. Felicity was on the comms and the rest of Team Arrow had come along to help herd him to a contained location. Easy peasy. Or it should have been, anyway.

For some reason, he and Oliver just couldn't synch up on the timing. Either Oliver would shoot too soon and his arrow would float upward uselessly, or Barry would reach full speed a few milliseconds too early and the arrow would crash into the ground. It took them five tries before Oliver was able to land one in the meta's ass. Five freakin' tries. And by that point, he and Barry were speaking to each other in curt monosyllables. Barry wasn't sure if the rest of the team noticed the tension, but he was certain that Felicity had. Her voice on the comms sounded puzzled at first, and then became increasingly terse with each failed shot. When they'd finally gotten the guy she said succinctly in their ears, "Oliver and Barry? Please make sure you stick around when you get back to the lair. I'd like to talk to you both." It was a command, not a request.

Barry had heard tales from Diggle about Felicity's "loud voice" and her ability to stand up to Star City's tough-as-nails vigilante. He'd always assumed that Digg exaggerated – she was, after all, such a sunny person in general - but when he walked into the lair that evening he got a clear sense that Digg hadn't overstated in the least. She fixed a long stare at both Oliver and Barry before looking around the room and saying, "Why don't the rest of you call it an evening? Barry, Oliver and I have something we need to discuss. Cisco – my plane is waiting to take the meta-human back to Central City."

It was a clear dismissal and no one argued with it. Thea and Laurel gave each other surreptitious grins before bolting for the elevator. Only Diggle, the last to leave the lair, cast a curious look in their direction before stepping out.

When it was just the three of them, she stood up and said in a low, steady voice, "Okay, I want to know what's up with you two. And don't you dare say 'nothing' - it's been like this for weeks. You barely talk to each other and, Barry, I can tell you're avoiding me. In fact, I can't help thinking that this has something to do with me. So what the hell is going on?"

Oliver studied Felicity, and Barry was surprised to see a slight crinkling in the corners of his eyes, the beginnings of a smile. It took him a second to realize that Oliver wasn't happy about being chewed out so much as he was delighted to see her back to full strength. Barry knew it was a cliché, but he couldn't help thinking that at this moment, Oliver gazed at Felicity as if she were a glass of water in the desert. His joy at having her there and healthy was palpable. It would really make Barry like the man if he didn't hate him so much right now.

Felicity, on the other hand, was unmoved by Oliver's tender expression. "Oh, don't look at me like I'm a golden retriever puppy, Oliver," she said sharply. "I want the truth." And when Barry started to grin at that, she turned and snapped at him, "And that goes for you, too, Barry."

There was silence while the three of them stared at each other. Felicity sat back down in her chair - a move that clearly said _I can wait as long as necessary for one of you to start_. Barry looked at Oliver; he really thought it was up to him to go first.

And at last Oliver sighed – a long, deep sigh. Barry saw a flicker of fear in his eyes and knew in that instant that he was going to tell her the truth. There was no guile, no calculation in that look; it was only the dread of losing something very, very precious. He glanced at Barry before saying, "You're right, Felicity. There _is_ something I've been keeping from you. Barry's known about it for a couple of months now and has been after me to tell you. I just," he swallowed heavily, "I just didn't know how. It's kind of…life-altering." He shuffled uneasily on his feet. "Anyway, you shouldn't be mad at Barry. This is completely on me."

Felicity started at the words "life-altering." She stared at Oliver, her expression mirroring his almost perfectly. It was clear to Barry that she was every bit as fearful of losing Oliver as he was of losing her. He could see her running through worst-case scenarios in her mind, looking for solutions to a problem she didn't even understand yet.

And for some reason, that made him optimistic; two people who mean that much to each other should always be able to work things out.

At any rate, he knew he didn't belong there. This was a conversation they should be having in private. He cleared his throat. "I'm going to step out now. If either of you want to talk later…"

They both nodded before turning back to each other. He punched the button to the elevator and stepped in quickly. As the door was closing he heard Oliver say, "I really screwed this one up, Felicity. I just…I didn't…I don't want to fail you. And I'm afraid I might over this." Barry couldn't hear her reply.

When he got out of the elevator several floors up he was surprised to find Diggle waiting. The man was standing in front of a window, staring out into the darkness with his hands loosely clasped behind his back. At the sound of Barry's footsteps, he turned and gave him a wry smile. "Which one of them is going to need my help?"

Barry shrugged, "Both of them, maybe."

Diggle sighed, "Damn. Those problems are always the worst."

* * *

Barry's optimism was eventually vindicated, although probably not as quickly as Felicity or Oliver would have liked. Felicity had no issues with Oliver having a son but, predictably, she was unhappy about him hiding that fact. As Oliver had anticipated, she also didn't like being excluded from a part of his life – that probably bothered her more than anything. She urged him strongly ( _urged_ being the polite word) to tell Samantha that his fiancée was not just anyone and could be trusted to keep a secret. There were arguments and tears. It took close to six months, but ultimately Samantha agreed to Felicity meeting William. A year later, he was the ring-bearer at their wedding.

* * *

 _A/N: It's interesting. I post on a couple of boards and these stories have garnered a lot of feedback elsewhere, but almost none here so I'm not sure if it's worth continuing. Thank you to the folks who did take time to fav/follow._


	3. The Uncertainty Principle

_A/N: Okay, this one actually has a little physics in it - but just a very little, and I probably got it wrong._

* * *

Felicity Smoak didn't like Werner Heisenberg. She'd never actually met the man – he'd died well before she was born – but she held him responsible for single-handedly ruining what could have been a perfect college grade point average. Heisenberg was one of a group of men who founded a branch of physics known as quantum mechanics. The group included no women because Felicity was fairly certain that women were far too practical to come up with such irrational, unprovable theories. She relented a little in her opinion of quantum mechanics when she learned that quantum tunneling enabled the development of computer chips. Computers were, after all, beautiful things. However, she steadfastly maintained her grudge against Heisenberg. Heisenberg and his stupid Uncertainty Principle.

Felicity never understood why a Computer Science major had to study physics anyway. There were so many other, more relevant courses. Coding, scripting languages, operating systems, encryption – plenty of material to fill up a four year degree. But, no, MIT had to insist on the sophomore physics class. Some of it was fine because, frankly, classical physics was pretty easy. Potential energy, conservation of momentum, force equals mass times acceleration – it was all stuff you could touch and feel, very intuitive. But Heisenberg's quantum mechanics was the complete opposite. It defied common sense – especially that fucking Uncertainty Principle. As hard as she studied, she couldn't seem to get the concept to click. And so, thanks to Heisenberg, her chance for a perfect GPA was trashed in her second year of college because she got her one and only 'B' in a transcript full of 'A's.

Cooper, her college boyfriend, thought she was silly to care so much. Grades were irrelevant, he said, just another means of oppression imposed by the wicked, nameless System. But while Felicity usually agreed with Cooper and his hacktivist agenda, she couldn't bring herself not to care about her GPA. For starters, she'd received a generous scholarship from MIT and wanted to show the school she was worthy of that investment. But mostly, it was a milestone to strive for. Coop could sport his 'C' average if he wanted, but Felicity saw nothing wrong with reaching for perfection. Of course, years later when she found out that Cooper was a complete ass (and after comparing him to Oliver Queen, really not all that great in bed either), his opinions on grades and pretty much everything else ceased to matter.

As best as Felicity understood it, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal said that if two things were related to each other, you couldn't be completely certain about both of them. If you knew one of them perfectly, then you had to have some question about the other. The example they used in physics class was position and velocity. If you knew position, then you couldn't precisely know velocity - and vice versa. To Felicity, that seemed stupid. If she were driving a car, the GPS would tell her exactly where she was and the speedometer would give her the velocity. Problem solved. But Heisenberg disagreed. Of course, he was mainly thinking about subatomic particles and not a 2004 Honda Civic, but why should the two things behave any differently? Felicity did her best to ignore the absurdity of the Uncertainty Principle and just use the textbook equations in her exam, but despite her best efforts all she could achieve was the 'B.' Perfection ruined.

Flash forward eight years later, and that tiny flaw in her scholastic record was all but forgotten. She was residing in Star City as the CEO of multi-billion dollar technology company, and living with a man who – while certainly not perfect – was perfect for her. Oliver Queen was smart, brave and completely and unutterably sexy. And he loved her every bit as much as she loved him; she had no doubt about that. Things might get scary at times, but overall, life was good – so much better than she'd ever imagined it could be. She never once thought about Heisenberg and his silly Uncertainty Principle.

That is, until their return from Central City after Vandal Savage.

She knew something had happened on that trip to put Oliver off his game, just a tiny bit. He'd been preoccupied and Felicity was sure that he and Barry had had words over whatever it was. Oliver had originally promised to tell her, but when they got back to Star City he'd dismissed it, saying only "it doesn't matter, it's over." It had worried her at the time and she meant to follow up, but then they got engaged, and she had to recover from the shooting, and she and Curtis had deadlines at Palmer, and her mom was dating Captain Lance, and life had moved on. Plus, Oliver was more devoted than ever. He'd always been a physically affectionate person, but now when they were home he just about draped himself over her in his efforts to stay close. She felt warm, protected and loved. It was wonderful. But every now and then, at the oddest moments, her gut would tell her that something wasn't quite right. She'd look at Oliver and she could tell that he'd gone somewhere else in his head, if only for a few seconds. And that bothered her.

It was bothering her late one night as she lay in bed. She hadn't been able to fall asleep, despite the two peel-me-off-the ceiling orgasms Oliver had given her. He'd dropped off almost immediately but, satisfied as she was, she couldn't seem to do the same. Instead she stared into the darkness, listening to his slow, steady breathing. Normally it was one of the most soothing sounds in the world, better than a sleeping pill. But tonight it wasn't working - she couldn't shake a feeling of fear.

And that's when she remembered Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Almost a decade after physics class, the silly thing just popped into her head as she tried not to toss and turn, worrying about whatever it was that Oliver wouldn't tell her. Heisenberg had said that if two things were related, you couldn't be completely certain about both of them. If you knew one of them perfectly, then you had to have some question about the other.

Love and Trust…two things that were related. Felicity rolled onto her side facing away from Oliver and thought about love and trust. _If you knew one of them perfectly, then you had to have some question about_ _the other_. Felicity was _completely_ certain that she loved Oliver and that he loved her. She would stake her life on it.

So where did that leave trust?

She gazed at her engagement ring, twinkling dimly on the bedside table. She would never say that she _didn't_ trust Oliver. She knew, for example, that he would always do the honorable thing. She knew that he would sacrifice himself for the people he loved. And she was confident that his days of serial dating were behind him. But was her trust absolute? She thought about the second lair that he'd kept from Diggle and herself for almost two years. She thought about the plan he'd cooked up with Malcolm Merlyn to defeat Ra's al Ghul – a plan he hadn't shared with his two closest friends. And she thought about his "it doesn't matter" statement when they returned from Central City.

And she concluded that, no, her trust wasn't absolute. Or, more importantly, maybe his wasn't.

Two things related to each other – love and trust. _If you knew one of them perfectly, then you had to have some question about_ _the other_. Damn Heisenberg and his Uncertainty Principle. She sighed.

"Felicity?" Oliver's voice was low and a little groggy. She hadn't realized that he'd awoken.

"Yes?"

"I can feel you thinking. What's got you up at this time of the night?"

She decided to answer him honestly. "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle."

"Excuse me?"

"Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. See, Heisenberg was a 20th century physicist who said…"

"I know who Heisenberg is, Felicity."

"You do?" That was a surprise. After dropping out of four colleges she didn't think Oliver had ever come close to a physics class, let alone quantum mechanics. She hoped this wasn't like cooking, where he had easily mastered something that completely eluded her. "How do you know about Heisenberg?"

He slid closer to her in their bed, spooning against her and wrapping one arm around her waist. "I read _The Elegant Universe_ , at least four times. Shado had a box of books on the island. When we weren't running for our lives or trying to find food, I used to read. We didn't have ESPN, I needed some way to occupy myself."

Really - Oliver read on the island? Felicity had always assumed that Oliver and Shado had found more _athletic_ ways to while away the hours. She rolled onto her back. "Oh, wow, Oliver. That's…cool. _The Elegant Universe_. It's one of my favorite books. You know the author - Brian Greene? He's kind of sexy for a physicist. The girls at MIT used go to New York once in a while just to hear him lecture. Cooper thought it was stupid but I think he…"

"Felicity!" Oliver sounded much more awake.

"What?"

"You care to tell me why you're thinking about Heisenberg in the middle of the night?"

Oh boy. Not really. She took a deep breath, "Well…"

And suddenly he was on top of her, his hard body contacting everywhere, his lips close to her ear. "You know what? You can tell me in the morning. Right now, I can make you forget both Heisenberg _and_ Brian Greene." His breath was warm and ticklish on her neck, and she felt a tingle all the way down to her toes. _Her_ breath hitched as Oliver lowered his lips to hers. And the Uncertainty Principle was once again forgotten.

* * *

Unfortunately for Felicity, spending _all_ of her time in bed with Oliver was not an option. So when he was not within kissing distance, she continued to worry about the thing that he didn't seem to want to tell her. Some days were worse than others, but it was never completely out of her mind. The frustrating part was that she knew it was within her power to find out. She had the skills and technology. She could pull his phone records to see who he called, she could hack his cell's location services to discover where he went, and she could probably even plant some of the nanotech she and Curtis were working on to record his activities. All of which felt sneaky and wrong. She held off doing anything for several weeks.

But eventually she just couldn't take it anymore. She'd tried numerous times to get him to talk, even plying him with a few extra glasses of wine over dinner, and she was still none the wiser. She thought briefly about withholding sex until he came clean, but her body was never going to cooperate with that plan. Typically it required only the right, smoldering look from him for things to go damp. So, instead, she put her considerable skills to use. She had to know.

She figured out quickly that he was going to Central City a couple of times each month. His visits usually coincided with days that she had to work late – board meetings or business trips. The address in Central City was puzzling. She initially assumed that Oliver was going there to do something with Barry and the crew from S.T.A.R. labs – something he didn't want her or Digg to know about. Maybe there was a new meta-human, she thought, or some experimental technology that Caitlin wanted him to test. But he never actually went to the lab, and when she Googled the street view of the address, it looked like he was visiting a residential neighborhood. It didn't completely rule out the meta-human theory, but it made it a lot less likely.

She stewed on that for a couple of more weeks before deciding to check the address out for herself. Oliver was going to be locked up with his campaign manager for most of the day and her meeting schedule was light. With the corporate jet she could be in Central City and back in an afternoon, putting her worries to rest once and for all. She had a last minute attack of nerves, debating whether she really wanted to act like a suspicious girlfriend, then told her assistant that she had errands to run and to hold her calls. At lunchtime she grabbed her purse and left.

The flight took less than an hour and she quickly found herself in a rental car, headed toward the outskirts of Central City. It had been a while since she'd driven herself anywhere – between limos and bodyguards she was almost always the passenger these days – and she enjoyed the freedom of handling her own vehicle on a sunny, spring afternoon. As she neared the address, she noticed that it was a nice neighborhood. The houses were modest but well-kept and the yards were tidy. She arrived around 3:00 and parked on the street, a short distance away from the small, brown two-story home.

And her courage deserted her.

She wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. It certainly was ironic. After wrestling with her suspicions for months she'd finally come this far – _fallen_ this far might be a better word – only to lose her nerve. Hell, she'd already done most of the ugly stuff; used her tech to spy on Oliver, lied to her assistant, and taken the corporate jet for a purely personal matter. All she had to do now was walk another 50 yards and knock on a damn door to get answers. And she couldn't seem to do it. She sat in the car, her hand reaching several times for the door handle, then stopping. Part of it was fear of what she might find, but most of it, she realized, was not wanting to be this person…a person who checked up on someone she loved. Love and Trust. _If you knew one of them perfectly then you had to have some question about the other._

Felicity sighed and started the car back up.

She began to pull away from the curb, then hesitated as a school bus drove slowly past her. The bus stopped in front of the house and a boy got off. He was slim, with sandy hair and blue eyes – maybe 8 or 9 years old. The door to the house opened and a woman stepped out to greet the boy, a large smile on her face. She was pretty, with dark hair and a petite build, and she looked too young to have a child that age. Felicity wondered briefly if she were the nanny, but her loving expression clearly said that she was the boy's mother.

And this was the house that Oliver was visiting. He was going to see a young woman, and a boy with sandy hair and blue eyes.

Felicity felt sick.

Of all the bad scenarios she'd imagined – and she'd imagined some pretty bad ones – Oliver seeing another woman had never been on the list. She'd thought perhaps he was planning to take on Damien Darhk by himself or was cooking up some scheme with Harrison Wells that he knew she and Digg wouldn't approve of. He'd pulled so many self-sacrificing stunts in the past that all of her thoughts had been along that vein – Arrow-related, not personal. Because she had been certain – absolutely certain – that Oliver loved her the same way she loved him, with every fiber of his heart and soul. Watching the woman and boy walk back into the house, she tried to tell herself that she was only seeing a piece of the puzzle. There was probably a good explanation; maybe this woman had a husband to whom Oliver owed a favor, maybe this was some kind of big-brother program. But seeing the boy's features, features that reminded her so much of Oliver, she knew that wasn't the case. This was a family…and it appeared to be Oliver's family.

Love and Trust. _If two things were related to each other, you couldn't be completely certain about both_ _of them_. What would Heisenberg say if you couldn't be certain about either one?

She wasn't sure how she did it, but she managed to turn the car and navigate her way back to the airport. She had to pull over twice to throw up on the side of the road, leaving a sour, spoiled taste in her mouth. When her flight crew worriedly asked her if she felt alright, she told them she had eaten something bad but would be fine for the flight home.

 _Fine_ , of course, being a completely stupid word and _home_ not being much better. When the plane touched down in Star City she realized that, for the first time since they'd started living together, she didn't want to return to the home she and Oliver shared. He was going to look at her face and know in five seconds that something was very wrong, and she had no idea what she was supposed to say . _I traced your movements for the last couple of months and I saw your other family in Central City - congratulations, it's a boy?_

She thought briefly about calling John Diggle, but that seemed totally unfair. John had had a front row seat to all of her drama with Oliver over the years, and he didn't deserve having to play relationship counselor to the most serious issue yet. Besides, it felt a little like asking him to take sides, and neither side was very attractive. There was her spying versus Oliver's cheating – tough to tell who was on the side of the angels.

In the end she went back to her office at Palmer. She had spare clothes and a toothbrush, and it wouldn't be the first time she'd pulled an all-nighter on the job. She texted Oliver to tell him she'd be working late and not to wait up. Then she changed into a comfy pair of leggings and an oversized sweatshirt, and pulled her hair out of its ponytail. If by some miracle she managed to feel drowsy, she could catch a few winks on the couch. Trying not to be a complete liar, she sat in front of her computer and pulled up the specs for their latest project. In her state of mind they made almost no sense, but she forced herself to concentrate, to think about something other than a sandy-haired, blue-eyed boy.

Two hours later the same specs were on her computer screen and she had accomplished almost nothing. It was past dinner time - nearly 9:00 - but she had no appetite, despite having lost her breakfast by the side of the road.

"Felicity?"

She looked up from her computer to see Oliver at the door, a bag of take-out from the local Thai restaurant in his hands. He caught sight of her face, dropped the bag, and rushed over to her chair.

"Felicity, what happened?"

She shook her head and refused to look at him, casting her eyes down on her keyboard. It was hard to imagine explaining her trip to Central City, and even harder to see how any rationale Oliver might offer could make this better. She gestured limply at the specs on the monitor, hoping that he would accept her frazzled appearance as an extreme case of work stress.

But Oliver, of course, wasn't buying it. He turned her chair away from her computer to face him, and his index finger went under her chin to tilt her face upward until their eyes met.

"Felicity, please tell me."

He was gazing worriedly into her eyes and there was nothing else to do _except_ tell him. She could feel herself starting to tremble, trepidation taking hold of her body. "I saw them, Oliver."

"Saw them? Saw who? Darhk's ghosts?"

"No. The woman and boy. The…family…you've been going to see in Central City. I saw them today."

His eyes widened and he stepped back. The hand under her chin dropped to his side. "How did you know…" He paused and his face darkened. "You tracked me."

She nodded, the trembling growing stronger. "I did. I had to…I had to know what was going on and you weren't going to tell me."

He was silent. She watched a range of emotions cross his face – panic, guilt – before he finally settled on anger. The hand at his side clenched and unclenched. "No, you didn't _have_ to, Felicity," he said sharply. "You could have left it alone. You could have _trusted_ me. After all we've been through, you could have given me the benefit of the doubt." His voice was indignant.

To her surprise, instead of feeling defensive, she felt her own answering spark of anger. She reminded herself that she was not the only one who had done wrong here. In a steadier voice she said, "And you could have trusted _me_ , Oliver. You could have told me about them - given _me_ the benefit of the doubt." Her trembling stopped.

They stared at each other, neither giving an inch. He shook his head heatedly and opened his mouth, but then suddenly paused. A little of the tautness left his body. "I couldn't, Felicity," he said more calmly. "I made a promise that I wouldn't."

"A promise to who?"

"To Samantha – the woman you saw."

Oh God, this was exactly what she had been afraid of. Her gut wrenched, the anger from a few seconds ago slipping away. He'd made a promise to another woman – a pretty, young woman. Despite her best effort to rally her ire – which she now knew was justified - she felt the sharp sting of tears as she asked, "Who is she, that you'd make that kind of promise, Oliver?" She paused, dreading the answer to the next question. "Do you love her?"

His face softened. "Of course not, Felicity. I met her when we were practically kids, well before the island. We had a brief hook-up and William, the boy you saw, is the result. He's my son." When she said nothing he continued, "I found out about him when we went to Central City to fight Vandal Savage. Barry and I were in Jitters, and I saw the two of them. I had to…I had to know."

"And the promise?"

"Samantha didn't want the world to know that William is my son. She was afraid that once the paparazzi got ahold of the story he wouldn't have a chance for a normal upbringing. She's probably right."

"You could have told me, Oliver. I'm hardly 'the world.'" There was an edge to her voice.

He sighed, "I know." He stared at his shoes as he added, "It was a condition of seeing him…not letting anyone know about William. I was so...excited and...scared when I found out about him that I was ready to agree to anything in order to be a part of his life." He returned his gaze to her face and his anger also seemed to have disappeared. "I know I should have trusted you…I should have told you right away. But somehow, the longer things went on, the harder it was to say anything."

She didn't know how to answer that and so they were silent, Felicity still sitting in her seat with Oliver standing in front of her. Oliver's explanation about William and Samantha was not what she was expecting. It wasn't good, but somehow it wasn't as awful as it could have been. He had a son, but he was a son conceived almost a decade ago, when Felicity was still in high school. Oliver didn't love Samantha, he had made an agreement in desperation. Oliver hadn't trusted her, but then she hadn't trusted him either. Love and Trust. _If you knew one of them perfectly then you had to have some question about the other._

"Do you love me, Oliver? No questions, no doubts?"

He reached out to stroke her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "I do, Felicity. No doubts whatsoever."

"And I feel the same about you."

The room felt a little brighter. The issue was by no means resolved, but she had a feeling that they would figure it out. She sat back in her chair and thought about the last few months – about Love and Trust and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Sometimes you couldn't know everything with absolute certainty…and maybe that was okay. She wondered if she took that physics exam now if she'd get an 'A.'

"Felicity?"

"Hmm?"

"Please tell me what you're thinking."

She looked up into his worried blue eyes. "Do you remember a few months ago, when I couldn't sleep?"

He frowned, "I think so. You were thinking about some physicist."

"Heisenberg, I was thinking about Heisenberg."

"Right. And you're thinking about him again now?"

And so she told him. She told him about the Uncertainty Principle and Love and Trust. _If two things were related you couldn't be absolutely certain about both of them._

"I think," she said slowly, "if I can only be certain about one of the things, I'd rather it be love."

He leaned down to kiss her forehead. " _I_ still think, with some work, maybe we can be certain about both of them. Prove the Uncertainty Principle wrong."

She smiled.

Take that, Heisenberg!


	4. Entropy

_A/N: I usually prefer to write stories where there is a little more action, but this popped into my head after "Taken" (with the Flash crossovers I never know if that's 4X15 or 4X16) and almost wrote itself. I really liked that episode and the choices they made for Felicity. Of all the reasons to be upset with Oliver for hiding William, his unwillingness to include her, to lean on her, felt adult and felt right._

 _I would still like to do something with Guest's suggestion of "The Butterfly Effect," but nothing is coming to me at the moment. We'll see._

 _If you're interested in other takes on Felicity learning about William, I'd strongly recommend "Coming Down to Nothing." The premise is so good I wish I'd thought of it (darn it) and it's really well written._

* * *

 _Entropy refers to the idea that everything in the universe inexorably moves from order to disorder._

The date almost slipped by without his notice. There was the usual amount of crazy going on plus a little extra, and it was evening before he glanced at the calendar and recognized the day. When he did, he was ashamed of himself for forgetting.

Two years. It had been two years since the death of his mother. Two years since she had faced Slade Wilson with a mother's courage to protect her children above all else. He was surprised that Thea hadn't mentioned anything, but then again she'd had her own set of crazy to deal with lately. Unlike him, she still had one living parent, but Oliver was pretty sure that only made things worse. Given the choice between Merlyn and no parent – well, no parent seemed like a pretty good option. In fact, now that he _really_ knew Malcolm Merlyn, he was amazed that Tommy had turned out as well-adjusted as he had. He wished his friend were still alive so that he could tell him so.

Not that his mother had exactly been sweetness and light. Calling her complicated was a little like saying that Mount Everest was a big mountain. She had been capable of great bravery. And she had been capable of – if not causing great evil – at least being a party to it, of watching it unfold and maybe even giving it a little push. The problem with having such a parent, he thought, was that you never knew whether you were supposed to follow any of their parental advice. Because…seriously… should you really be taking lessons in respect, decency and the benefits of hard work from an individual who was in part responsible for the deaths of 500 of your fellow citizens? She was hardly a role model.

Nevertheless, on this anniversary of her death he found himself thinking about the things she had told him growing up. While neither of his parents had been intellectual slouches, he was certain now that his mother had been the more intelligent of the two, the one more capable of dissecting layers and working her way through nuances that his father missed. That difference had been apparent in their advice. His dad's had been pretty standard, as if he were reciting from the Handbook issued to all fathers on the birth of their son; work hard, deal with people fairly but don't be a sucker, be charitable up to a point, don't let your wife know about your mistress – that sort of thing. Of course, Dad had made up for his banality in the end with that doozy in the life raft, but that was really more about giving Oliver a mission than giving him a life lesson.

His mother, on the other hand, had dispensed advice that was less traditional and often more puzzling. It wasn't a daily occurrence – there were three or four big teaching moments a year – but when she did, she generally left him scratching his head. Unlike his dad, he didn't know what he what he was supposed to _do_ after one of his mother's serious talks. They seemed more philosophical than directional. He typically filed her words away in the back of his brain, hoping that one day they might make more sense.

Two years after her death and a day after Felicity left him, some of those words came back to him with amazing clarity. Sitting in the too-quiet loft and looking out at the lights in Star City, he thought about what she had told him on his sixteenth birthday.

Sixteen was a big one and Oliver had been looking forward to it for months. Eighteen might be the legal hurdle to adulthood, but Oliver knew that sixteen was really the age at which you stopped being a child and began stepping into the grown-up world. It was the age at which you could drive, get a job (not that he planned on doing _that_ ), and – he was quite confident – get laid. You began making your own decisions at sixteen, and people had to respect those decisions. Hell, he was even beginning to _look_ like an adult. The gangly boy was developing broad shoulders over a narrow waist, and his stick-thin arms now had biceps and triceps. And the girls were noticing.

He'd told his mother all that – well, minus the getting laid part – when she'd asked him why he was so excited about turning sixteen. She'd listened in silence, and continued to sit quietly with him for so long that he wasn't sure she was going to say anything. But in the end, of course, she had.

"Oliver, do you know one of the big differences between being a child and being an adult?" she'd asked in that careful, cool way of hers.

He'd grinned. "Yeah – all the things I just told you. A car, money, independence…"

She'd looked into his eyes and smiled – rather sadly, he'd thought – and shook her head. "Those are just show, Oliver, they're not the real difference."

"Oh?" What else could it be? He'd wondered if she'd read his mind about getting laid and was about to give him the _responsible sex_ talk. (Dad had already done that – on his fourteenth birthday).

But, no, this was going to be one of her philosophical musings. "The difference, Oliver, between being a child and being an adult is that when you become an adult, very few things - including happiness - are ever pure again. They get complicated…and they tend to unravel. It's not that you won't ever be happy as an adult – you will, plenty of times. But even in your happiest moments there will be something that dilutes it, some little worry that stops it from being complete. Things in life have a way of coming apart. You don't see it as a child, but it's in your face every day as an adult. And when you're grown up, you have to work hard every day just to hold things together. Don't rush to give up childhood, Oliver. Once it's gone, it's gone forever."

Sixteen-year-old Oliver hadn't known what to say to that. It was kind of a downer on his big day, and that bit about happiness didn't seem right. He'd sat there and stared at her, certain that if he received the Porsche he'd hoped his father was going to give him, his happiness would be very pure indeed. This was just another puzzling piece of advice from Mom that was to be archived for a future date. Maybe he'd talk to Tommy about it - ask what his father had told _him_ on his sixteenth birthday. It had to be better than a few vague words about keeping things from falling apart. He'd decided that he would ignore her and stay focused on what mattered – getting the Porsche and getting a girl in bed.

Grown-up Oliver noticed that a light rain was beginning to fall, blurring the windows in the loft and turning the lights below into a muted, softened version of Star City. Yesterday, he thought, he had known great happiness; he had felt his heart leap the way he'd always heard it could in songs and stories. He had seen Felicity, confirmed by at least four specialists to never walk again, stand up out of her wheelchair and move cautiously but most definitely on her own two feet. He had seen a miracle.

It was staggering. Oliver had experienced enough in his life to know that miracles were real; they positively happened. He also knew, however, that they were whimsical things, not always there when you needed them and astonishing you when you least expected them. Felicity getting out of that chair had been a needed miracle, a bonanza of good luck for the person he loved most in the world, the person who deserved nothing but good luck. And he had been happy – happier than receiving the Porsche on his sixteenth birthday, happier than getting laid for the first time, happier even than returning to Star City after being presumed dead for five years. He would never forget the look of awe on her face.

That happiness had lasted for all of five seconds. Because shortly after standing, she had used her newfound mobility to walk out on him, to carry herself to the door of the loft and leave. It had felt final, permanent. The look of awe on her face had been replaced by one of sorrow, and his pure happiness had unraveled, had come apart.

He recalled his mother's advice about working hard every day to hold things together. He'd believed that was what he'd been doing – holding the city together, holding Thea together, holding the secret of his son together – but apparently he'd taken his eye off the thing that mattered most. In some ways his relationship with Felicity was no less miraculous than her stepping out of that chair. The fact that a woman of strong convictions, who was smart, brave and beautiful, loved him unreservedly was every bit as amazing as a microchip that could make the paralyzed walk. He'd been a complete fuck-up for half his life and damaged goods for the other half, and she had somehow seen past all that to tie her life to his completely. And, stupidly, he'd taken that for granted.

He wondered what his mother would have thought about his engagement to Felicity. He was fairly certain his father would have liked her. Dad would have appreciated the fact that she never hesitated to call Oliver on his bullshit, that she was both strong and _funny_. Despite his responsibilities – or perhaps because of them – Robert Queen had been a man who valued a good laugh. Oliver was certain that Felicity would have provided more than a few chuckles during stilted family occasions, exactly when they were most needed. He could picture his dad grinning as she went off on one subject or another.

He wasn't so sure about his mother. She had always liked Laurel, but then Laurel had been perfect for Moira Queen, at least in the pre-island days. Laurel had been beautiful, serious, and ambitious, but not so smart that his mother couldn't manipulate her when she chose. Laurel had been anxious to please, the daughter of the local policeman wanting to get in the good graces of her boyfriend's wealthy, elegant mother. He had no doubt that Mom had capitalized on that, had made Laurel into a malleable ally in her quest to drive Oliver to be a responsible, successful adult.

Felicity, on the other hand, was not so easily controlled, despite being the lowly daughter of a Las Vegas cocktail waitress. Felicity had had the good sense to distrust his mother right from the start, and he doubted that Moira Queen would have been pleased with someone who could see through her machinations. Of course, in the end, when Mom had known he was the Arrow and was proud of him for it, he might have gotten her to come around about Felicity. He would have told her that Felicity was a big part of him becoming the man he was, that he couldn't have done any of it without her. His mother would have grown to value Felicity, even if she never totally warmed up to her. Above all, Moira had wanted what was best for her children. Felicity – clearly - was the best thing for Oliver.

Which meant that if Mom could give him advice at this moment, she would tell him that he had to stop things from unraveling; that he had to pull things back together, pull Felicity and himself back together. It wasn't going to be easy. Of all the reasons to pick for leaving him, she'd chosen one that was incredibly hard to fix. He'd expected her to be angry about the lie, to be hurt about him keeping secrets from her. He'd been confident he could smooth over that hurt in time. But his inability to lean on other people, to lean on his partner? That was another story. Running away to solve problems on his own was as natural as breathing to him. Maybe it stemmed from the number of times he'd been betrayed after the Gambit. Maybe it came from growing up in a house with two parents who were masters at keeping things to themselves. He was certain a psychologist would have a field day with it. But right now, he didn't have time for therapy to get at the root cause. He needed to change immediately. He needed to convince Felicity that he was willing to turn to her when things got complicated, that he was willing to lean on _he_ r. He just didn't know how to do it.

He decided he'd start by leaning on a friend.

He picked up his phone and called Diggle.


	5. Gravity

_A/N: This one was born from a short discussion I had with another writer on this board. Felicity is typically my favorite woman on TV (well, along with Demelza on "Poldark," another gutsy, unconventional woman involved with a dark, complicated man), but I didn't like Felicity very much in 4X16. Her bitter sniping at Oliver really bothered me and felt out of character. I said so to the writer._

 _Her response was that she didn't think Felicity liked own behavior very much either, and that's why she pulled herself off the team at the end of the episode. I think she was right. I think Felicity decided it was time to heal emotionally and the only way she was going to do that was by gaining some separation from Oliver.  
_

 _I post here and on AO3, and this story got a very strong reaction on that board. People really thought I was unfair to Felicity and I got an earful! I guess I don't see that in this story - it was certainly not the intent. Digg isn't real kind to her but, watching the show, he's seemed to be more sympathetic toward Oliver than her. And she stands up for herself.  
_

 _Anyway, enough excuses. Hope your feeling is a little more positive._

* * *

Felicity stood in front of the mirror in the City Hall ladies room and let the wedding dress slide down her body until it rested in a sparkling, white puddle on the floor by her feet. It was her real and very beautiful wedding dress just worn in an ugly and very fake wedding. Felicity had spent weeks searching for that dress. She'd pored over bridal magazines and photos her mother kept sending her, and visited at least four shops before she'd found it. The second she'd put it on she'd known it was perfect; old-fashioned princess meets the modern woman - innocent and sexy and hopeful all at the same time. She was confident she looked amazing in it, and she'd been certain Oliver would find her so. And now she hated it. She stepped out of the dress and, in one swift movement, swept it off the floor and stuffed it into the garbage can.

She'd been right about Oliver's reaction to the dress. Even though the ceremony was a sham to trap Carrie Cutter, for a second he'd looked at her as if she were his whole world – as if he'd forgotten the wedding wasn't _real_. And then there were his vows, clearly something he'd been thinking about for a long time. She'd been touched in spite of herself, his words warming her heart even when she didn't want them to. But only for a moment. In fact, in some ways Oliver's heartfelt vows had only made it worse. To say those things at a wedding that wasn't a wedding…when there was never go to be a wedding…well, they only served to remind her of what she'd come so close to having. His words shone a light on two people who loved each other desperately, yet remained separated by the paper-thin barrier that was trust. Paper-thin, but impenetrable as iron.

Felicity stopped to stare at her face in the mirror. She wasn't sure she recognized the woman looking back at her. She knew she didn't like her. She'd always been the optimist on the team, the one who saw the glass as half full, the one who found the silver lining, the one who – well, pick your cliché for the cute and quirky sidekick who always found the words to bring Oliver back from his darkness. Those words - those feelings - were so distant now that they may as well be in Nanda Parbat, buried under the Hindu Kush mountains. Broken by her hurt she'd been a bitter woman these last couple of weeks, muttering sarcastic digs aimed at Oliver – aimed at _hurting_ Oliver the same way he'd hurt her. And she knew they'd hit the bullseye every time. She could see it in his eyes, in the way his body slumped when she'd delivered one of her zingers. She'd always had a gift for sarcasm – it was part of her armor - but never before had she used it so well against someone she loved. Hell, even her mother hadn't been this bad when her father had left them. Yet as much as she hated it…hated herself…she couldn't seem to bring herself to stop. And watching Diggle raise his eyebrows and glance sympathetically at Oliver only made her angrier.

She stepped into her every-day dress, pulling the colorful A-line over her sexy and sophisticated underwear, struggling a little to zip up the back. The woman in the mirror was quite a contrast to the one Oliver had met four years ago. Back then, she'd worn cotton – a basic white bra and simple panties under a schoolgirl skirt and sweater. Now it was lace and silk, grown-up seduction courtesy of Victoria's Secret. But she didn't feel sophisticated at this moment. She felt vulnerable and insecure, in need of reassurance. And the one person she usually went to for comfort was the one person she could no longer talk to. Despite being CEO of Palmer, despite her work with Curtis and her improved relationship with her mother, so much of her life revolved around Oliver. Take him out of it, and there was a big, gaping hole.

When she was eight years old her science teacher had taught her class about the solar system. They'd had one of those mechanical models with balls of different sizes representing the sun and planets, joined by a series of rods and gears. You turned the handle and the planets circled around the sun, some faster, some slower. Her teacher had explained that the sun's gravity kept the planets in orbit; that gravity was an invisible force that held everything in place, circling forever. She'd added that the sun's pull was so strong that other objects got sucked in as well – comets and asteroids and meteors – anything that traveled within a certain distance of big old Sol was inevitably caught.

Felicity had loved that model, loved the predictability and certainty of it. Friends might come and go and still the planets would go round the sun on the same path, at the same speed. You might come home and find your father gone, and still those balls would trace their inexorable circles.

Slipping on her shoes in the ladies room, she realized that Oliver was like the sun. Without meaning to, he sucked everything and everyone around him into his orbit. He had started his mission four years ago intending to do it all on his own. But then Diggle had been pulled in…and soon Felicity had followed. Eventually that gravity had captured Roy and Sara, Laurel and Lyla, Captain Lance, Ray Palmer and even Thea. And his force didn't just attract friends and allies; it also drew in evil and darkness. Slade Wilson, Malcolm Merlyn, Ra's al Ghul and Damien Darhk had all been susceptible. Just like the planets, friends and enemies alike were held in place, circling around Oliver, unable to escape his gravity. _She_ was unable to escape his gravity.

Felicity gathered up her purse and took one last look at the wedding dress poking out from the top of the garbage can. _Leave it_ , she told herself. She noticed that her hair was still swept up in Oliver's favorite style and hastily pulled the clips out, letting it tumble to her shoulders. She wished desperately that she had her glasses. They were part of her armor, along with sarcasm, and she knew she looked less vulnerable when she was wearing them. Unfortunately, she'd left them at home...well, not really home, just the place she'd dumped her boxes after moving out of the loft. She kept telling herself that with some furniture and pictures it would soon feel more welcoming.

She took a deep breath and stepped quietly out of the ladies room, adroitly avoiding the paparazzi as she headed for the stairs and the car that was waiting in the underground garage. She decided not to tell Oliver she was leaving. With Carrie arrested and Darhk in prison, there was nothing for him to worry about and it would do them both the favor of not having to talk about the almost-wedding. Besides, she was fairly certain he was still dealing with the police. The fake wedding had been his idea – well, his and John's – and it seemed fair that they deal with the aftermath.

She had barely arrived at her apartment and was half-heartedly contemplating unpacking her boxes when there was a knock on the door. Looking cautiously through the peephole she was surprised to see Diggle standing outside. A year or two ago this would have been normal. Back when they were fighting Slade Wilson, when Oliver had dealt with pain by disappearing, John had been her best friend. She would have sworn he understood her better than Oliver in those days - could _read_ her better than Oliver. He had comforted her when Oliver had started his relationship with Sara, and united with her to pull Oliver back from the edge after Moira Queen had died.

But life had moved on. Diggle was married with a child now, and she and Oliver had become a couple – for a little while, anyway. She rarely spent time alone with John anymore; there had been no crises forcing the two of them to call on their unique friendship and Team Arrow had long since expanded beyond its three founding members. Still, if nothing else, she and John remained bound together by history, mutual respect, and the fact that they both continued to orbit around Oliver, caught in his gravity.

She opened the door a little reluctantly. She had a feeling she wasn't going to like what John had to say.

"Hey, Felicity." He stood in the doorway, studying her with his careful, measured gaze. His face wore no judgment, but it also wore no sympathy.

"John." She stepped away from the door to let him in. She saw him glance around at the unfurnished room and shrugged slightly. "I'd ask you to have a seat but…"

He smiled briefly, taking in the boxes that hadn't been unpacked and the assortment of shoes scattered haphazardly in the corner. Putting clothes in the closet was another thing she hadn't gotten around to. It seemed so final. And despite all her hard words to Oliver, she wasn't sure if she was ready for it to be over either.

"I came to see how you were doing."

His concern seemed genuine, which should have given her some kind of comfort, but her response still popped out sharply before she could stop it. "I thought you'd be with Oliver asking _him_ that question. He seems to have all your understanding lately." There it was, the bitter comeback - Felicity 2.0 was definitely not an improvement over the old model. Diggle raised his eyebrows and stared at her. She shook her head. "I'm sorry, John…I just can't seem to help myself these days."

His expression softened a little. "The fake wedding couldn't have been easy."

"No, it wasn't easy. I was surprised Oliver agreed to it and I'm still not sure why you suggested it."

Diggle shrugged neutrally. "It worked. We drew Carrie out and now she's going to jail." After a moment, he added carefully, "You know _he's_ in a lot of pain, too."

"I know that, John."

"So couldn't you take it a little easier on him?"

And there it was; she assumed this was the real reason John had come here, to plead Oliver's case. She felt a small spark of anger and held onto it because it was better than the empty, hollow feeling. She looked defiantly back at Diggle. "The difference between Oliver and me, John, is that he created this…situation. He lied. He had something… _huge_ …in his life, and he didn't tell me about it. He did what he always does. He tried to solve it on his own."

"That's Oliver. You can't have been completely surprised. You've been with him long enough to know who you were getting involved with, Felicity."

That was true. Trust John Diggle to be brutally honest. She turned her gaze away from him to look blankly out the window. The view from her apartment was not nearly as good as the one from their loft…from _Oliver's_ loft. "I don't know, John. A lot of things about Oliver have changed. I guess I thought by this time that his secrecy was one of them, that he'd left this piece of the island behind. But he hasn't."

"Not yet," John agreed. "But it doesn't mean he won't someday." He walked over to her and placed his hand gently on her shoulder. His face was kind. "He's come a long way, Felicity. You've been good for him in so many ways. Are you really sure you want to give up on him now? He may still figure it out."

She stepped away from his hand and looked up at him. Suddenly it felt important that he understand even if he didn't concur. She tried to explain, without anger this time. "When I found out that Oliver had a son he didn't tell me about, it was like a knife in my gut. A son he'd known about for _months_ , John. Had been going to Central City to visit for _months_. A whole other life that he wouldn't or couldn't share with me." She shook her head. "It was worse than being shot by Darhk's ghosts, worse than being in that chair." She ran her hand tiredly through her hair. "I don't think I have it in me to face that kind of hurt again while Oliver figures out whether he wants to be open with me. Chances are good it will keep happening, and it's just too hard."

Diggle frowned. "This was a tough one, Felicity. He was protecting his _son_. Before Sara I might have looked at it differently but, believe me, when you're a parent, you do whatever you have to do to keep your child safe."

"Does that include being stupid? Because in what universe does having Merlyn know and me not know make his son safer?" Diggle opened his mouth but she hurried on, "And be honest with me, John. Can you look me in the eye and tell me that if Lyla kept something like this from you, if _she_ had some whole other life that she didn't tell you about, you wouldn't at least question the strength of your relationship?"

He stared at her a long time. She could almost see the thoughts as they flickered through his brain – he wanted to tell her that they would stay together and work things out, or that the situation with Oliver wasn't the same. In the end, however, honesty prevailed. He said nothing and lowered his eyes.

She turned back toward the windows. "That's what I thought."

The room lapsed into silence. At one time, their silences had been comfortable – they had blanketed long hours in the foundry or flights to Lian Yu. Now, however, it felt awkward.

Diggle cleared his throat. "Well, Felicity, I guess I'll be going. I'm sorry for the way things have turned out. I still have hope for you two, though. You love each other, and if there were ever two people who were meant to be together..."

"I think that hope is misplaced, but thank you anyway, John."

He gave her one last, penetrating look and then left quietly, making the apartment feel bigger and emptier, less like a home than ever.

She spent the next few hours unpacking boxes, trying to put some stamp of herself on the new place with marginal success. One thing that was abundantly clear from her conversation with John was that her pain and bitterness were not only affecting Oliver, they were affecting everyone. To think that she could no longer be in a relationship with him yet remain a part of the Team was foolish. She needed distance, otherwise his pull on her was going to keep her in orbit forever. She would feel this pain forever.

When she was ten and in an advanced math class with kids two and three years older, the teacher had shown them the equation for gravity. He'd told them about Isaac Newton coming up with the formula almost 400 years ago, and how astrophysicists still used it today. They'd done a few exercises where they'd calculated the gravitational force between the earth and the moon, and the earth and the sun. It hadn't meant much to her at the time; it was just numbers with no frame of reference.

And then the teacher had told the class about escape velocity. He'd explained that if something moved fast enough it could elude the force of gravity and not get pulled into orbit. He talked about how the Voyager spacecraft, launched more than twenty years ago, was going to eventually pass beyond the solar system, able to avoid the pull of the sun because it was traveling at escape velocity. She'd found that idea much more interesting. To her ten-year old ears, it had sounded magical.

Felicity glanced around her apartment, at what was supposed to become her home. There really was only one option if she were going to stop being the bitter, angry woman she'd been these last couple of weeks. For everyone's sake, she was going to have to break free of Oliver's gravitational force.

It was late, but she wasn't sleepy and there were a few things at the lair she needed to pick up. She put on her glasses and left the apartment.

She was going to achieve escape velocity.


	6. Heat Transfer

_Happy Mother's Day, especially to any moms who teach physics._

* * *

"What do you mean you won't do it?"

Oliver gave Curtis his best intimidating stare as the two of them stood eye-to-eye in the lair. It had worked well in the past, but this time it appeared to be having no effect. Curtis simply stared back at him as Digg looked on in mild amusement.

"I'm sorry, Oliver," Curtis said firmly. "You know I'd help you if I could – I love being part of Team Arrow. This time, though, I'm really not the man for the job."

Oliver did his best to hold his temper. What he needed _seemed_ simple enough, well within Curtis's abilities. Apparently, Curtis thought differently. Oliver took a moment to collect himself. As tempted as he was by the idea of grabbing their new resident geek and strangling him, he knew that was not going to help. He took a deep breath. "Well, if you're not the man, who is?" he asked as patiently as he could.

Curtis shrugged. "Felicity."

"Felicity's the man for the job?"

"The job involves inserting a bunch of executables onto HIVE's servers to help us track the location of key operatives as well as gather information on their next moves. So, yes - Felicity's exactly the man for the job."

"You can't do the same thing? I thought you had her skills and then some." If intimidation wouldn't work, maybe a challenge would.

It didn't. Curtis frowned thoughtfully and said, "I could try. But doing the job right also involves hiding the executables so that HIVE's IT guys don't find them, trace them back to us, or delete them. Stealth is Felicity's forte, not mine. Once she gets access to the servers, she can do this job in 15 minutes. It would take me a couple of hours at least – and even then I wouldn't be sure if I'd done it right. You really need to ask her."

Oliver sighed. He'd seen Felicity numerous times in the months since they'd broken up, but other than the few minutes after Laurel's funeral, he hadn't spent any meaningful time alone with her. That day had been awful, yet somehow it had felt right sitting with her in the limo - and almost a little too good. It had felt like the old days, when Felicity had held an unquestioning belief in his ability to save things - an unquestioning belief in _him_. Sitting with her in the backseat he had felt the gulf between them narrow, if only for a moment and only just a tiny bit. It was progress, but it wasn't nearly enough for him to be asking her favors, especially joining him alone on a mission.

He shook his head. "Felicity's not an option. You have to do this one, Curtis." He made it a statement and not a request.

But Curtis held his ground. Damn, the man could be stubborn. "No, Oliver. If you want to get this done safely, quickly and right you need Felicity." Studying Oliver's face he added, "Look, if it's _asking_ her that has you worried, I can ask. Once she understands the situation, I'm sure she'll do it. She wants to take out Laurel's killer as much as any of us."

Oliver wasn't nearly as certain. _The situation_ involved traveling 20 miles outside of Star City to a HIVE datacenter to implant malware on servers that would then send information back to the lair. They were hoping to track Darhk's movement patterns with the goal of finding him when he was least well defended. After an evening of trying to break into the servers from the lair, Curtis had determined that the job could not be done remotely – it required physical access. Fortunately, the datacenter was not heavily guarded. HIVE seemed to assume that the remote location and nondescript appearance of the building gave it a decent amount of protection. After 6 pm the place was just about deserted, with only one or two guards on duty. If Felicity really could do the job in 15 minutes, then it appeared to be a no-brainer. But it would mean an hour or two together in close proximity, without the buffer of Curtis or John. And it carried vague reminders of an earlier time, when Oliver and Felicity had broken into the Merlyn mainframe.

Oliver studied Curtis's tenacious expression. "Fine," he said at last, "Ask Felicity. Assuming she says yes, we'll go tomorrow evening."

Curtis just about beamed. "No problem. I'll stop by her place on my way home to talk to her, and give you a call right after I do." He headed almost jauntily for the elevator, and the lair was left to Oliver and Diggle.

"Did that seem a little strange to you?" Oliver asked Digg. "Usually Curtis is begging to help out."

Diggle shrugged. "Maybe." After a moment he added, "What's really worrying you, Oliver? That Felicity'll say no or that she'll say yes?"

Oliver wasn't sure he was in the mood for Diggle's insights. "What exactly does _that_ mean, John?"

"It's been a while since you've spent time alone with Felicity. With Laurel's death and everything else that's been going on, you've pushed the breakup to the back of your mind and you're in denial about how much it's hurting you. You do this datacenter job tomorrow and you'll be forced to consider how much you really miss her."

Oliver thought about it. "It sounds like if we do this right, it'll be quick - a couple of hours, tops, and we'll be pretty busy. Hardly time to delve into our feelings." At least he hoped so.

Diggle nodded. "Right."

* * *

Predictably, Felicity agreed to do the job. She showed up at the lair after work the next day, dressed in black, stretchy jeans, low heeled ankle boots, and a black hoodie. If she felt any unease at working with Oliver, she didn't show it. She stood next to him as Curtis walked them both through the schematics of the HIVE datacenter and they picked their best options for ingress and egress. She asked Curtis a few questions about HIVE's IT security procedures in a measured, matter-of-fact voice. She was all business. To Oliver, the message was clear. She was pro, he was a pro – they'd done this before and they could do it now without any pesky emotions getting in the way. Fine – he was all onboard with that.

The first snag came with transportation.

Oliver had assumed he would suit up and they would take the bike. It was the preferred mode for all Arrow missions – fast and nimble if they needed a quick getaway, and frankly much cooler than a car. Laurel and Speedy always preferred the Ducati.

It wasn't until they were getting ready to leave that it dawned on him that having _Felicity_ on the bike would mean having Felicity pressed up against his back, with her arms around his waist. Not exactly the same thing as toting your sister. Felicity had never ridden the bike much in the old days. Her short dresses and tendency to be in the lair rather than in the field made it an infrequent event. The few times she _had_ ridden with him, however, had been quite stimulating for both of them – and usually the prelude to even _better_ activity afterward. He watched the color drain from her face as she remembered exactly the same thing. They both turned toward Curtis.

"Curtis," Oliver said crisply, "Can we borrow your car?"

Curtis looked puzzled. "My car? Aren't you going to just take the bike?"

Oliver cleared his throat. "The weather doesn't look great. Chance of rain tonight."

Curtis shook his head. "No…no…I checked a few minutes ago," he said confidently. "Dry as a bone." When Oliver continued to stare at him he added more determinedly, "Look, I don't think it's a good idea to have The Arrow using my car. If you're caught on video somewhere, it's going to be hard to explain."

Felicity chimed in, clearly in Oliver's corner on this one. "You can just say it was stolen, Curtis."

Curtis shook his head. "Nah…to make that work I'd have to report it stolen to the police. And if I report it stolen, then they'll be looking for it while you're still out there breaking into datacenters…well, you get the idea. I don't think that's gonna work."

Oliver turned to look at Felicity. She shrugged slightly and once again assumed a business-like expression. Clearly she was back to _I'm a pro, you're a pro_. Well, if she could do it, so could he.

"Alright," he agreed reluctantly. "We'll take the bike."

* * *

Fortunately, planting the software in the datacenter went as smoothly as Curtis had predicted. Oliver and Felicity broke in undetected, found the server exactly where they expected it to be, and got Felicity's software installed and running in less than 15 minutes. Oliver breathed a sigh of relief as they headed toward the door and Curtis and John, listening on the comms, congratulated them on a job well done. As Oliver and Felicity climbed onto the bike, Curtis announced that he and Digg were signing off for the night and would talk to them in the morning.

The second snag came as they were about to ride away from HIVE's datacenter.

Apparently they hadn't gone as undetected as they'd thought, because a couple of shots rang out and the dust on the ground next to them kicked up as Oliver started the bike. Looking over his shoulder, Oliver saw a single guard coming toward them with his pistol raised. The guard fired again and Oliver felt Felicity flinch behind him. Oh Christ, he thought, not a second time. Oh _please_ , not a second time.

He could barely get the words out. "Felicity, are you hit?"

She squeezed his waist. "No, Oliver," she said reassuringly, "I'm not. It's just the sound – any time I hear a gun now I think about…" her voice trailed off.

Thank God. Oliver found he could breathe again and hit the throttle for all he was worth. The Ducati's tires squealed as they sped away. After a few minutes he asked Felicity, "Is anyone following us?"

She glanced over her shoulder. "I don't see anyone."

"Well, let's not linger." He kept the bike at a steady 80 miles per hour as they raced along the winding road back toward Star City. Even during the day this was a little used route; at close to 10 pm, it was deserted. He tried a couple of times to raise Curtis and Digg on the comms, but the two must have really meant it when they said they were headed home because he was met with silence. It didn't seem too important. No one was tailing them and, at this rate, they'd be back to Star City in 15 minutes.

The third snag came when the Ducati began to sputter.

Oliver ignored the first cough from the bike's engine. He'd been riding the Ducati over four years now as The Arrow and the thing had never failed him, despite rough terrain and some hairy skids. Oliver had almost come to think of the bike as a friend, another loyal and tough member of the team. Felicity had tuned it up regularly – she possessed freakish automotive skills along with being an expert hacker - and it had always run like a champ. It occurred to him now that she hadn't looked at the bike since they'd broken up and, like all things mechanical, it was not infallible. He made a mental note to add motorcycle maintenance to Curtis's list of duties. Too late to be of much help tonight.

He pushed on the throttle and with one last, desperate gasp, the Ducati died.

He and Felicity got off and he pushed the bike over to the side of the road. "What do you think?" he asked her. "Can you fix it?"

She raised an eyebrow and gave him her best sardonic look. "Normally I'd say yes, but given that I don't have any tools and it's close to pitch black, I'm going to go with a resounding _no_. Remind me to dock Curtis's pay when we get back for not lending us his car." At least she was still trying for a little humor.

Oliver reached under his hood to remove his mask. It seemed pretty safe under the circumstances, and he wanted any future conversation with Felicity to be as Oliver, not The Arrow. "Well, my best guess is that we're still about 10 miles outside of Star City," he said. "Given that you're wearing sensible shoes," – he resisted adding _for a change_ – "we can be there in less than three hours if we walk."

"Fine by me."

He nodded. "I'd suggest we move off the road and into the woods, just in case someone did follow us. It's only a quarter moon, but there should be enough light for us to keep the road in sight."

"Right. Let's go."

* * *

The first time Felicity stumbled, Oliver didn't think much of it. It was dark, after all, and they were walking on uneven ground. The second time really didn't register either. But the third time she tripped – when she nearly fell on her face – he moved behind her and began to pay attention. And once he started watching, he couldn't help but see that her legs were moving awkwardly, as if she weren't in full command of them. Something clearly wasn't right.

"Felicity?"

She didn't turn to look at him and kept moving clumsily forward. "Yes, Oliver?"

"What's wrong with your legs?"

"Nothing's wrong, Oliver. I'm fine."

Bullshit.

"Felicity," he tried to keep his voice gentle, to not make it an order, "Please talk to me."

She stopped then, but didn't turn to face him. Instead, she said in a strained voice that he could barely hear, "I think the power's dying."

"The power?"

"To my chip - the chip in my spine. My legs aren't doing what I want them to do because my chip is running out of energy." She sounded embarrassed, as if it were somehow her fault.

He didn't know what to say. Once she had gotten out of the wheelchair and started walking again, he hadn't thought much about the miraculous technology that had made it possible. The chip, her determination, her optimism - they had all become bound together in the wondrous being that was Felicity Smoak. That a silly mechanical malfunction like a low battery could bring her back to paralysis had never occurred to him. Yet it was an uncertainty that she had to live with every day, that she was living with right now. Even with the chip, things were never going to be exactly the same for her. He was ashamed that that thought had never occurred to him, that he had assumed the chip had allowed life to go back to exactly what it had been before she'd been shot.

Stupidly, he said, "I thought the chip ran on the Palmer super-battery thing. You know, the battery that never runs out of energy?"

She sighed. "The chip _does_ run on it. But what makes the Palmer-Tech battery special is its ability to recharge itself. When energy output isn't needed, there's a unique electro-chemical reaction that restores power. With my chip, the battery normally recharges while I'm sitting in my office or while I'm sleeping. But today I've been on my feet pretty much since 6:00 in the morning. Curtis had me doing walk-through's of a number of labs all day, I had a brief presentation to the Board, and then you and I went to the datacenter. I don't think I've sat down once. I guess we're identifying the limits of the battery. I realize it's a lousy time to be finding them out." There was a tremble in her voice as well as a note of apology. She sounded like she was hitting _her_ limit.

Oliver felt something fall inside him, as if his heart had dropped from his chest to his gut. He'd spent the whole day thinking about how difficult the datacenter job was going to be for him – without recognizing that it was equally as difficult for her. And now, to top it all off, her chip was out of power and she was physically failing. Talk about a lousy day. He thought briefly about picking her up and carrying her, but knew he couldn't do that for 10 miles. He glanced around the woods. They were a decent distance from the bike and it was unlikely any of Darhk's Ghosts were going to find them in the blackness. He felt relatively safe.

"Okay," he said to Felicity. "Why don't we stop here and rest for awhile? I don't think they can find us. How long will it take for the battery to recharge?"

She pondered that one. "Four hours, maybe? I'm not sure."

"Well, let's sit for a couple and then we can test it."

Even in the dark, the relief on her face was evident. "Thanks, Oliver."

* * *

They moved another twenty yards or so away from the road, then stopped when they found a small cluster of pine trees. There was a blanket of soft, brown needles on the forest floor, dry and fragrant. If it were noon and summer, Oliver thought, this would be a pleasant place for a picnic. As it was, they could certainly do worse. He leaned his back against a tree and watched Felicity settle hers against another nearby. And for the first time that evening, Oliver felt _really_ alone with her – no Curtis on the comms, no distraction of the mission. Just him and Felicity, sitting together in the dark. She closed her eyes.

Silence descended.

He thought she had fallen asleep, until he noticed her body trembling. He was wondering if it was nerves or maybe pain, when he realized that it had gotten pretty chilly. He didn't mind too much – he had a thermal shirt on under his leathers – but Felicity was basically wearing a cotton hoodie over… well, who knew what she was wearing under it? His mind travelled briefly to a favorite black, lacy bra she sometimes wore under dark outfits – _his_ favorite bra, mind you, not hers. The memory alone brought additional warmth to his body. Her trembling, on the other hand, grew stronger.

"Felicity?"

"Yes?" Her voice was shaking as well as her body.

"Are you cold?"

"A little," she admitted. "I probably should have dressed more warmly, but it was still daylight when I left my place and I felt really comfortable. I wasn't thinking about how cold it might get when we lost the thermal radiation."

"The thermal radiation?"

"Yeah…you know, from the sun?" she explained. When he said nothing, she added, "It's one of the three forms of heat transfer: Radiation, convection, conduction."

He almost laughed. Trust Felicity to turn being stranded and cold in the woods into a treatise on the physics of heat transfer. He was about to call her on it when it dawned on him that she might be _trying_ to make him laugh, perhaps to ease the awkward situation or to avoid talking about anything personal. After all, he used physical activity to hide; she used science and humor. He decided to go with it.

"So, explain radiation." he said conversationally. "As you know, I never passed any of my physics classes."

She responded immediately, with a smile in her voice. "Radiation is when heat is exchanged at a distance, without any physical contact. You know, like when you step from the shade to the sun to feel its warmth, or you hold your hand near a light bulb but don't touch it. If the other object is warmer, you feel the heat transfer immediately. When I left my apartment this afternoon it was still sunny…there was plenty of heat radiating from the sun. Not so much now."

She sounded cheerful and a little less shaky. So far so good. Oliver decided to maintain the scientific discourse. "And convection?"

"Convection is when a fluid moving over a body helps transfer heat to or away from it. It's why our convection oven in the loft cooked food faster - it circulated hot air around the food."

Oliver liked her use of "our oven." Every now and then she would do that – slip into a mode of speech that made them sound as if they still shared something, as if they were still together. It gave him hope. He didn't think she was aware that she did it. "So," he continued, anxious to keep her talking, "That's interesting, but I guess convection isn't really relevant at this moment."

"Actually," she said a little more soberly, "It's entirely relevant. Convection can transfer heat to a body, like the oven, but it can also transfer heat away. Think of a wind chill. The cold air blowing over your body carries heat away faster than if there were no wind. Kind of like the way the breeze is cooling us down now."

She was right. The air did seem more gusty than it had a few minutes ago. With his eyes well-adjusted to the dark, he could see her gather her knees and pull them to her chest. She clearly was cold – past the point of it being a discomfort and into the territory of it being a danger. Her shivering had resumed in full force and her cheer from a few moments ago had disappeared entirely. He tried to distract her. "And what about conduction? We haven't covered that one yet."

There was a long pause while she studied her hands. Apparently, conduction was her least favorite mode of heat transfer. At last she said, "Conduction is when heat moves between two bodies that are… in contact. Heat flows from the warmer body to the cooler one. Like when you touch the burner on the stove by mistake, or wrap a hot towel around your body." Her voice was almost despondent when she mentioned the towel. She must be freezing. Oliver glanced briefly at his watch. They had been sitting for about 30 minutes and there were at least another 90 to go before it was even worth testing the power in her chip. Ninety minutes, and getting colder.

He pondered what she'd said about conduction. Two bodies in contact…heat flows from the warmer one to the cooler one…

The wind picked up and she shivered violently. He might even have heard her teeth chatter. That settled it.

"Felicity?"

"Hmmm?"

"I'm pretty sure my body is warmer than yours."

"I'm not surprised," she said matter-of-factly. "Your body always did run warm – you never minded when I pulled all the covers over to my side. The leather is probably helping with the wind chill, too. It's less porous than cotton."

All true, but not the point. He was going to have to try again. He took a deep breath. "What you said about conduction, Felicity? That heat flows from a warmer body to a cooler one through contact? Well, I'm telling you that _my body is warmer than yours_."

"I heard you before, Oliver. I'm happy that you're warm. I'm not. So what?"

He sighed. He was going to have to spell it out. "So, I'm suggesting that we take advantage of the situation to try a little conduction. Use contact to move heat from a warmer body to a cooler one."

His suggestion was met with silence, and then a gasp. If it hadn't been so dark, he would have sworn that he'd seen the light bulb go on over her head. She put her face in her hands.

"Oliver," she said at last, "I'm not so sure that's a good…"

"Are you cold?" he interrupted impatiently.

"Yes. But I don't think I'm in danger of losing my…"

"Do you think it will help?" he continued briskly.

"Maybe a little. But you and I and…body contact …I don't…"

"Felicity!" he snapped in exasperation. Damn, the woman could be stubborn. "You're freezing and you're shivering. I can hear your teeth chattering over here. For all we know, that's using up energy that could be recharging the battery. If we want to get back to Star City, you need to be able to walk, which means we need to restore power to the chip. I think we owe it to ourselves to give this a go and I'm not going to ask you again. Get your ass over here and let's…try some conduction, dammit."

She exhaled loudly, "Fine." After a minute spent girding her loins – metaphorically - she got stiffly to her feet and stumbled the few yards over to his tree, sinking to the ground next to him. He reached out and pulled her to his side, then half onto his chest. He nearly jumped when she tucked her face into his neck and her freezing nose came into contact with his skin. After a minute, she slid one hand under his leather jacket and tucked it in the waistband of his pants at the hip. They sat – well, half sat, half laid down – once again in silence.

It might have been his imagination, but after a few minutes her shivering seemed to have lessened, although it didn't disappear entirely.

"Better?" he asked.

She nodded, not moving her face from his neck. "Better."

"Good."

The wind picked up further. Even he was feeling it now, despite being huddled next to Felicity and his more effective clothing. Now that they'd gotten over this first hurdle, he wondered if there were anything else they could do to stay warm. He thought about her mini-lesson on heat transfer. "Felicity," he began carefully.

"Yes?"

"Now that we've got conduction, is there anything we can do to cut down on the _convective_ heat loss? You know, reduce the wind chill?"

She thought about it for a moment. "Really, the only thing you can do to reduce convective heat loss is to cut down on the surface area exposed to the fluid. For us that would mean finding a position where less of our bodies are exposed to the air. So, I suppose if we were to try to curl up in a tighter position…"

"What if you lay completely on top of me or…better yet, me on top of you? You'd have your back on the pine needles and me covering your front. Not a lot of surface area exposed to the wind. In fact, the only thing exposed would be my back. Shouldn't that help?"

He cringed almost as soon as he'd said it. Suggesting he lay on top of Felicity to keep her warm was right up there with some of _her_ best verbal gaffs. He closed his eyes, expecting her to either pull away or give him a tongue-lashing.

To his surprise, she did neither. After a long moment, she said softly, "Oh hell. In for a penny, in for a pound." She sighed. "I'm still cold. Let's try it."

Oliver couldn't believe his ears. Before she could change her mind, he gently steered Felicity onto her back on the pine needles, then gradually rested his body over hers, carrying some of his weight on his elbows. The position immediately brought to mind a number of touching, post-coital moments in their history – for her as well as him, he suspected. It also gave him the opportunity to peer down the front of her hoodie and observe that – yes - she was indeed wearing his favorite black bra. To his utter embarrassment he felt himself begin to harden, like a fourteen year old boy with absolutely no control. He was pretty sure she could feel it too. He ducked his head, hoping the hood covered most of his face. He really did not want to meet her eyes.

Felicity came to the rescue. "Oliver," she said slowly, "if it makes you feel any better, I want you too."

It was the last thing he expected her to say and the best thing he could have possibly heard. He blinked hard, and then he _did_ look into her eyes, at the honesty and vulnerability in them. "You do?"

She nodded. "I always want you, and you know I still love you, but it doesn't change anything. I don't think I can be in a relationship where my partner's first inclination is to solve all his problems without me."

"What if I told you that I don't want that either? That I want to change?"

"I'd say – go change, then."

"And if I succeed?"

She smiled. "I'm not going anywhere, Oliver. You know where to find me. But the change has to be real."

Suddenly Oliver felt warm – there was a heat inside him that had nothing to do with conduction, convection _or_ radiation. And if the chip took four hours to recharge – well, that didn't seem like such a bad thing either.

* * *

Down in the lair, John Diggle glanced at the clock.

"It's been three hours," he said to Curtis. "How long are you planning on leaving them out there?"

Curtis shrugged. "I'm not sure. Do you think three hours is enough?"

Digg shook his head. "They're both really stubborn people. I'd suggest another hour or two. It's chilly but not freezing. There shouldn't be much risk of hypothermia."

"Right." Curtis went back to typing something into the server.

"You know," Diggle continued conversationally, "I don't think I want to be you when Oliver finds out that you drained most of the gas out of the bike and rigged the gage. Felicity either, for that matter. I assume you've experienced her loud voice? And, technically, she's your boss. She could make your life very unpleasant."

Curtis stopped typing. "I'm hoping for a good enough outcome tonight that both of them forget to be angry," he said softly.

Diggle thought about that one. "Maybe," he agreed skeptically. "But on the other hand, if they end up walking all the way back to Star City, they could be more pissed off than ever."

Curtis nodded. "I suppose so. I did my best to run Felicity ragged today so that the battery in her chip would drain, but I may have underestimated its ability to hold a charge. If all went according to plan, they should be snuggled up somewhere at this moment with nothing to do but talk."

"We could always turn the comms back on and listen in."

Curtis grimaced. "I don't think so. If for some reason things are going _really_ well, I don't want to hear my boss getting down with her boyfriend. I'd never see her the same way again."

Digg shrugged. "I can understand that. Guess we'll find out later then."

"Yup."


	7. Covalent Bonds

_**Author's Note:** This story gets us into Season 5, right after Oliver has begun seeing the reporter, Susan Williams, for drinks. I'm pushing the physics metaphor (this one's really about chemistry and even then...) but, hey, what the hell. This is also a bit of a behemoth. So, if you like a long chapter, you're in for a treat.  
_

* * *

 _ **Covalent bonds**_ _: The strongest form of bond between atoms when joining to make molecules. The atoms share their electrons to complete their outer shells. Alone, the atoms are unstable because the shells are incomplete. When joined by covalent bonds, they become stable and are difficult to separate from each other._

 _Water is formed by the covalent bonding of hydrogen and oxygen._

* * *

Susan Williams wasn't entirely sure what she'd intended when she reached out to Oliver Queen and offered him friendship and a willing ear. It would be a lie to say that there was no self-serving motive at all in her proposal. She was a reporter and the man was a story - he was many stories. He'd been a public figure for over a decade; a billionaire, the CEO of Queen Consolidated, and the survivor of a shipwreck that stranded him for five years on a deserted island. He'd lost his father in that wreck and had seen his mother murdered in front of him. And now, against all odds, he was the city's mayor. She wanted to understand what drove him - what had happened to change him from a reckless and irresponsible youth to a determined leader at not much past the age of thirty. Being in his confidence might give her answers, and it would sure as hell give her a leg up on the other reporters on the City Hall beat.

On the other hand, it would also be a lie to say there was no altruism whatsoever in her offer. The day she'd first suggested they sit down over a drink and talk off the record, Oliver had looked as though he'd lost his best friend and had his puppy kicked, all in the space of an hour. Susan had been covering local politics for enough years to know how lonely it could be for the person at the top. You rarely received credit when something was a success, but when it failed it was entirely your fault. No one had your back or did you a favor without expecting something in return. When she'd reached out to Oliver, it really had been to give him the opportunity to unload for an hour or two, with no strings attached.

Of course, the fact that he was sex on a stick hadn't hurt either. Susan had no doubt that if Oliver wanted to blow off steam by something _other_ than talking, she would be able to oblige with _that_ , too. Hell, you could learn a lot about a man by how he managed things in bed.

All of which put her in something of a quandary. That talk one night over a drink had grown into a series of nights, and recently they'd begun adding dinner to the evening's activities as well. Oliver, while not exactly spilling his guts, was beginning to open up – just a little. He talked about his relationship with his sister and what it had been like growing up in the Queen family. He talked about trying to follow in his father's footsteps as CEO of Queen Consolidated. Most of all, he talked about his hopes for Star City. With a soft smile crinkling his blue eyes, he told Susan he wanted to see all residents with a chance at a good education and a decent job, no matter what part of the city they were from. He wanted the hospital to have the latest in life-saving equipment and the police department to have paid overtime for its officers. He used words like _fair_ and _safe_ and _secure_ and really meant them. It was clear that when it came to _his_ city, he spoke from the heart.

And to her surprise – regardless of what she'd originally intended - Susan found herself beginning to like Oliver Queen. A lot. As in _like-like._ As in _when the hell are you going to kiss me – like_. She could feel herself losing objectivity when it came to him – something she should _not_ be doing as a reporter. She _wanted_ him to succeed, not only because it would be good for the city but because it would make him happy and the man was just so damned… _decent_ …that he deserved a little happiness. The fact that he couldn't catch a break seemed unfair. The current City Council, for example, was one of the most obstinate she'd seen in all the time she'd covered city politics They greeted every bill proposed by Oliver with skepticism and suspicion and tried to thwart him at every turn. He put in terribly long days at City Hall preparing for Council meetings, and when he would meet her for drinks late in the evening he often seemed _physically_ spent. If you didn't know he was the mayor, you might have thought the man had been out running a marathon rather than sitting in an office. Nothing came easy.

The most recent calamity was a series of emails purported to be from Oliver to various City Council members, demanding favorable votes on his proposals in exchange for services for their districts. The story broke one morning as he and Susan were having coffee at a local diner. Oliver was completely blindsided; the two of them watched in stunned silence as a Star City television station aired excerpts from his supposed emails. Several Councilmen were interviewed, declaring their outrage and already calling for Oliver's resignation.

"What the hell?" Oliver nearly dropped his coffee in his lap as he watched the television. He turned to stare at Susan across the table. "This isn't true – I didn't send those emails." After a few seconds he added, "Please tell me you had nothing to do with this story."

She shook her head blankly. "I didn't, Oliver. I'm hearing it for the first time, too."

"And please tell me you don't believe it."

She reached over to squeeze his hand. "I don't, Oliver. I know you well enough to be certain you wouldn't do something like this." _And I'll look like a complete idiot to my producers_ _if it turns out to be true and I missed the story_ , she thought.

She was rewarded by one of Oliver's brief but genuine smiles, making her glad she'd supported him. He picked up his phone and tapped it hard to make a call. "Speedy," he said tersely after a few seconds, "are you watching the news?"

Susan recognized Oliver's nickname for his sister and could hear the faint murmur of Thea Queen's voice on the other end of the call. Whatever Thea was saying, it couldn't have been good because Oliver's face grew darker and he rested his forehead briefly in one hand.

"Of course, I didn't send them," he said impatiently, "but apparently someone went to a lot of trouble to make it look as though I did." He exhaled heavily in frustration. "The timing couldn't be worse – you know we're trying to secure funding for the computer lab in the Glades high school. Now the budget committee won't approve a thing until there's an inquiry into the alleged coercion." He closed his eyes and listened once more. "Yes," he agreed shortly, "I'm on my way right now. I'll be there in fifteen." He pocketed his phone and rose quickly from the diner's booth, throwing some cash on the table. "I'm sorry to cut it short," he said to Susan, "but as you can see, we've got an emergency. I'll call you later."

"Can I tag along?" The words were out of her mouth before she had time to think about them.

He hesitated and gave her a conflicted look.

"Not as a reporter," she assured him, "but maybe to help? An inquiry will take months. If we can find the people who really sent the emails, it'll clear you and you can move forward with your plans for the Glades school. I admit, it will also make a better story for me, but that's not why I'm offering." When he continued to appear undecided, she added, "Look, Oliver, I want computers for the students in the Glades, too. We're on the same side on this one."

He gazed at her for a few more seconds and then seemed to make up his mind. There was gratitude in his eyes when he said, "Well, if that's the case, I can use all the help I can get. Thank you, Susan." He held out his hand and she took it as she rose from her seat. She felt a small, pleasurable jolt as he closed his fingers lightly around hers, and even more satisfaction when he didn't let go for the entire cab ride to City Hall. They'd never held hands before, and as juvenile as it sounded, she felt like it signaled some kind of step forward in their relationship. Up until this point they'd been friends. This…this seemed to herald the potential for something more. Susan felt an urge to smile, despite the stress of the moment. Only Oliver Queen could make holding hands feel this sexy.

Thea Queen was in Oliver's office when they arrived, pacing nervously back and forth. She moved forward to greet Oliver but then stopped when she saw Susan. "Ollie…" she began, eyeing the reporter suspiciously.

He cut her off. "Susan is here to help, Speedy. She believes the emails are fake and she's a good investigator. We need to get to the bottom of this."

His sister didn't look convinced. "You know she played me before, Ollie." She gave Susan another sharp look. "Even though you two seem to have some sort of _thing_ going at the moment, she's a reporter first and foremost. She may mean it now about helping, but I'm pretty sure she'll sell you out for the right story. I don't trust her."

Oliver squared his jaw stubbornly. "Well, _I_ do, Thea. And I think I know her well enough now to be sure of it." When his sister continued to regard him skeptically, he added, "Look, we don't have time to argue. Even if you refuse to believe she has good intentions, how much worse can she make it? The story's already out there. Does it matter if she reports on our efforts to find out who's behind the emails?"

Thea frowned and Susan wasn't sure whether to laugh or be angry. Oliver's argument wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement of her character (although she got a strange thrill when he said he trusted her), but the logic seemed to work with Thea. After a few seconds, Oliver's sister shrugged and said shortly, "Fine. It's your call, anyway. You're the mayor."

"Good." Oliver walked over to Thea and rested his hand lightly on her shoulder. "Now - have our IT people had a chance to look into the emails?"

Thea nodded. "They checked the servers. Those emails are definitely in _your_ outbound folder. It really looks like they came from you, Ollie.

Oliver closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Do you think we should call…" he began.

"Already called her."

"Thanks."

 _Already called who_ , Susan wondered? A private investigator? A public relations specialist? Whoever it was, Oliver must have thought she could do something about this mess because he immediately began glancing at his watch. After five minutes he asked Thea, "When did you call?"

"Right after you and I talked on the phone, about twenty minutes ago. She said she'd come straight over."

"Great." The tension in his jaw eased a little but his eyes returned impatiently to his watch.

The lady must be some kind of miracle worker, Susan thought, given how badly Oliver wants her here. She couldn't recall him having a crisis management expert, but maybe that's because she hadn't seen him the midst of a big enough crisis. After another five, tense minutes, Susan heard rapid footsteps approaching from down the hall and watched Oliver lift his eyes eagerly to the doorway.

A rather small, blonde woman entered the office. Susan definitely had _not_ seen her among Oliver's staff before and was immediately taken aback by how young she was. She'd been expecting a tough, middle-aged businesswoman in a dark suit, and it would be a stretch to place this girl in her mid-twenties. Her ponytail, glasses and sleeveless print dress made Susan think of a wholesome college student, although she was forced to reconsider that theory when the blonde marched up to Oliver with an air of confidence that suggested she _had_ managed crises before. In covering City Hall, Susan believed she'd met all of Oliver's spokespeople, yet she'd never encountered this woman. And, at any rate, the girl didn't have the look of one of Oliver's mayoral team; she appeared too fresh, too unguarded, and far too familiar with Oliver. So what on earth was her role? And why did Oliver react the way he did to her? Susan could have sworn he relaxed _visibly_ as she walked up to him, as if he truly believed this little blonde could fix his very big problem. Clearly, they'd been through other catastrophes together.

She expected Oliver to re-tell the story of the emails, but all he said to the woman was, "You saw the news?"

The blonde nodded and then tilted her head toward the computer on his desk. "I'll take a look in a minute. Any idea of who might be behind it? It'll give me a place to start."

Oliver shook his head. "Unfortunately, no. I heard the story along with everyone else this morning."

The woman frowned, but didn't look surprised. "Okay. Let's see what your computer can tell me." She walked over to his desk.

"Do you need my email pass-"

She gave him a withering look. "Seriously, Oliver?"

He sighed. "Right. What was I thinking?"

The blonde sat in Oliver's chair and began typing. So she was an IT specialist. Susan took another minute to study her, narrowing her eyes a little at the way the girl had taken over the room – or at least had taken over Oliver's attention. She was an unusual blend of characteristics; her fresh, natural beauty made her look as if she'd been plucked from a women's beach volleyball poster (height notwithstanding), but she clearly had brains and experience. For some reason, Susan found her a bit…annoying. This was the mayor's office, after all, where people typically showed a little deference, and this girl had blonded in as if she owned the place. Oliver must have noticed Susan's curious expression because he gestured briefly to the woman. "Susan, this is Felicity Smoak." When the blonde looked up, Oliver continued, "Felicity, this is Susan Williams." Felicity gave Susan a brief stare before turning back to the computer and continuing her rapid strokes on the keyboard.

Felicity Smoak. Aha. Some of the pieces fell into place for Susan. Felicity Smoak; former CEO of Palmer Technologies, recognized computer expert and - more importantly - Oliver's fiancée…well, ex-fiancee now. The reporter was surprised she hadn't recognized the lovely Ms. Smoak when she'd walked in, but then the Felicity sitting in Oliver's chair looked different from the one Susan had seen in the news. In photos taken at various functions during Oliver's mayoral campaign, Felicity had skipped the glasses, worn designer dresses, and arranged her hair in a soft updo. She'd looked a little more mature and a lot less edgy, a softer version of the woman sitting in the office now. At this moment, she was all business. Susan recalled that Felicity had nearly been killed as the result of an assassination attempt on Oliver late last year and wondered whether that had anything to do with her attitude. She certainly appeared to have recovered physically; she looked fit, her bare arms toned and her complexion beautiful. Overall, she was an attractive young woman. Still…she didn't seem like Oliver's type, if Oliver had a type. In her mind, Susan always saw Oliver with someone taller, darker and more sultry. Someone more like Susan, as a matter of fact.

"The emails definitely came from your account, Oliver," Felicity announced, lifting her hands from the keyboard and leaning back in the Mayor's chair. "I looked for backdoors and alternate IP addresses and there are none."

Oliver stared at her. "You think someone got my password?"

Felicity shook her head. "By guessing it? Doubtful. It's a long, complex one. Even an automated algorithm would take months to figure it out." For the first time since she'd arrived, she grinned at Oliver, revealing a pair of dimples and a set of very white teeth. "I'm glad to see you haven't forgotten all my IT security lessons."

" _You_ guessed the password," Susan pointed out to her.

Felicity nodded. "True, but that's because Oliver is still using his old convention for cycling through his passwords. It's pretty personal. You'd have to know him _really_ _well_ to…" She flushed and stopped speaking, suddenly staring down at the keyboard. Susan noticed Oliver flushing slightly as well. What the hell was this password naming convention, she wondered? Anniversary dates from when they were dating? Favorite sex positions?

A thought suddenly occurred to her.

She walked over to Oliver and tugged gently on his arm. "Can we have a word in private?" she asked quietly. Both Thea and Felicity gave her a curious look, but neither said anything.

Oliver also appeared puzzled as well as reluctant. His brow furrowed and he said grudgingly, "If you want." He glanced briefly at Felicity, but she had returned her attention to the computer, so with a shrug he allowed Susan to lead him out of the office. He forced them both to a stop a few yards down the hall.

"What is it?" he asked curtly, looking back toward his office door. "If you haven't noticed, Susan, we're a little busy trying to figure out who's sending bogus emails on my behalf."

She decided to ignore his curtness. He was under stress, after all. "I know," Susan replied mildly. "And I have an idea of who it could be." He raised his eyebrows and she took a deep breath. "Did it occur to you that it might be Felicity?"

"What?" Oliver's faced darkened instantly as he stared at her. Then he shook his head. "Not a chance."

"Think about it," Susan continued. "The pieces are all in place. She's an IT expert. She knows your password – which even she says would be nearly impossible for anyone to guess. And the emails were sent from your account – your own IT people confirmed that. It would be easy for her."

Oliver shook his head again, more firmly this time. "There's no way. I agree Felicity has the capability to do anything with a computer, but what would her motive be, Susan? As long as I've known her, she and I have wanted the same things for Star City. She was supportive of my mayoral campaign, even after she'd been shot. She wants to see me succeed, and she continues to fight every night for…" he stopped abruptly and gazed down the hallway, composing himself. "It's not her," he said shortly.

"Oliver…"

"Susan," he said, and for the first time since she'd known him, the reporter thought she saw a flash of real anger in his eyes, " _it's not her_. I know Felicity like I know my own soul and there's no way she would do this. So, drop it."

"You broke off your engagement, Oliver. Women do strange things when their relationships fall apart. It's not unheard of for a woman to seek revenge. Maybe she blames your job as mayor for the separation."

Oliver turned to face her and there was no mistaking his anger this time. "I said _drop it_ , Susan. First of all, _Felicity_ called off the engagement, not me. And second, she's not that petty. She's one of the most honorable people I know. If you see any good in me now, it's because Felicity helped put it there." And with that, he spun on his heel and headed back to his office. Susan stared after him before following gingerly in his wake. She realized that Oliver Queen could be a little frightening when he was angry.

By the time she walked back into his office, Oliver was standing behind Felicity's chair, resting his hand on the back of it. The two of them seemed accustomed to the pose – Susan would bet they'd done this before. The blonde was pointing out something to him on the monitor and he was leaning forward over her shoulder to read it. Susan noticed Oliver twice pick up his hand and begin to place it on the back of Felicity's neck, only to change his mind and return it to the chair. Felicity seemed oblivious to the gesture.

"They used a key-logger," she said to him. "It's basically recording all your key strokes and sending them back to someone. That would include your email password. Given that your email's internet accessible, it pretty much grants them free rein to read and send."

Thea frowned. "How would the key-logger get onto Ollie's computer?"

Felicity looked up at her. "There's a couple of ways. It could have been installed as malware if Oliver clicked on a phishing email. Your brother is pretty savvy about these things, though, so I think it's more likely someone just walked into his office and uploaded it."

Oliver sighed. "Oh great. There's only about three dozen people with access to this office, including the cleaning crew. And any one of those people might just be a puppet - paid by someone else to do it. It'll take forever to figure out who's really sending the emails." He stepped away from behind the chair to face Felicity. "Can you remove it, at least?"

She nodded. "Of course, I can. However, you might want to leave it there for a little while longer."

"Because?"

"Because I can figure out where the keystrokes are being sent and then we'll know who's really generating the bogus emails. I put some tracer code on your computer. If you change your password, whoever's doing this is going to have to come back to the key logs to get the new password. When he or she does…bam! We follow the trail. Shouldn't take more than a day or two."

Oliver stared at her for a few seconds and then smiled – the first truly happy smile Susan had seen from him all morning. "Let's do it. Thank you, Felicity."

"De nada."

The pair gazed at each other and Susan got the sense of some kind of unspoken conversation passing between them. She realized that however much she thought she knew Oliver Queen, there were facets of his personality she'd never seen. Facets that this blonde woman apparently knew intimately.

Felicity rose abruptly from her chair, ending their silent discussion. "I'll call you when I've got something," she said quickly. Grabbing her purse, she headed for the door. She gave Susan one more sideways glance before disappearing down the hall with a click of her high heels.

* * *

Oliver's confidence in Felicity's computer skills was not misplaced. In a couple of days she'd traced the key logs back to one of the City Council members, and a little creative hacking confirmed the man to be the source of the bogus emails. Susan did some additional digging and discovered that he was in league with a local real estate developer whose proposal to tear down the Glades high school and begin a gentrification project had been rejected by Oliver months ago. As mayor, Oliver's goal was to improve the Glades while keeping it affordable for the people already living there. The gentrification project would have created new, expensive housing, forcing the current residents to move out. There would have been great profits for the developer and a decent kickback to the Councilman – but no benefit at all to the people in the Glades.

It made for a great investigative story and Susan ended up the exclusive, much her producers' delight. For nearly a week she owned the Star City news, telling viewers about the Councilman's false emails and his ties to the wealthy real estate developer. Her station's ratings sky-rocketed and her journalistic skills were applauded. Even better, Oliver's reputation was restored, and he was happy – so happy that after celebrating with her over dinner and a bottle of wine, he went to her apartment and she received that long awaited kiss and then some. It turned out that Oliver Queen definitely did not disappoint in the bedroom.

That celebratory night broke the ice, so to speak, and since then he'd been a semi-regular visitor to her place. There was no pattern to when he stayed. Some weeks were busy and he didn't come at all, and other weeks he might be there three times. It was unpredictable, but it was enough for Susan. She wasn't ready for a full-on commitment either, and they spent enough time together for her to feel confident that he wasn't seeing anyone else. He was passionate and enthusiastic and things were good – they were very good.

There was just one fly in the ointment. One small, very blonde fly.

Because, much to Susan's disappointment, it also turned out that Oliver was one of those men who remained good friends with his ex. It took her a while to figure that out. She'd always assumed that the phone calls he both made and received at odd hours had something to do with his job as mayor. After all, they were generally brief and business-like, and often seemed to hint at some emergency or other. But after that day in his office - seeing the way he and Felicity Smoak looked at one another and seemed fully caught up on each other's lives – she began to wonder. And after a month of wondering, she decided to check.

It wasn't easy. She had to get over her qualms about acting like a reporter when she'd sworn to Oliver that she wouldn't use their relationship as an opportunity to investigate him. Even more challenging (although less noble) was the fact that he guarded his phone as if it contained the keys to the nuclear launch codes. It was nearly always in his pocket, and he even took it into the bathroom with him when he showered. It was only when she woke one morning at 2:00 am for a quick pee and noticed it on the bedside table that she had the chance to examine it. Moving as quietly as possible since Oliver was a light sleeper, she picked the phone up and scrolled through his call log. She felt a little guilty, but reminded herself that she was growing closer to the man and had a right to know who she was getting involved with. His call history surprised her, and not in a good way.

There were several calls to or from Felicity Smoak on that day alone. As there were on the day before, and the day before that. In fact, there was enough cellular traffic between the two of them that Susan wondered whether they were on the same Friends and Family plan. Feeling more justified, Susan turned her attention to Oliver's texts, but found he had deleted nearly all his history. There was only one short message from Felicity earlier that evening saying: _Curtis found it. Will talk to you tomorrow._ It was, admittedly, an entirely unromantic text. Still - _talk to you tomorrow?_ And who the hell was Curtis?

Unable to sleep, Susan stewed over Oliver's call history for the rest of the night. When he awoke early at 5:00 am, as he typically did, he widened his eyes when he saw her propped up against the pillows, reading the news on her tablet.

"You're up early," he said softly.

Susan nodded curtly. "Couldn't sleep."

He heard the tension in her voice. It was hard to miss, really. "Is something wrong?"

She glanced down at him and sighed. "I don't know," she said a little more evenly. "Maybe."

Oliver rolled over onto his stomach, turning his head on the pillow to face her. "Talk to me."

He said it so kindly and looked so sexy that she suddenly felt reluctant to confront him about his calls to Felicity and potentially start a fight. Still, she had to know. They were becoming close and she had a right to understand if she was at risk of being hurt. She sat a little straighter in the bed and refused to be distracted by the warmth in his eyes or the muscles flexing in his back. "How often do you talk to Felicity?"

"What?" He clearly was caught off guard by the question.

"How often do you talk to Felicity?" She tried to keep the suspicion out of her voice.

He shrugged. "I don't know. A few times a week, I suppose."

Susan felt something in her harden. That statement was a blatant lie. "A few times _a week_? Oliver, I looked at your call log. You talk to her a few times _a day_."

The warmth left his eyes, replaced by distrust and even a little pain. He pushed himself into a sitting position alongside her in the bed. "You looked at my phone?" he asked flatly. "I thought we were at the point in our relationship where I could trust you weren't going to investigate me."

Susan sighed and shook her head. "I'm not investigating you…at least not as a reporter." When he gave her an incredulous look she continued, "I have a right to know what I'm getting into, Oliver. You and I – this _thing_ between us is starting to feel like a real relationship. That day in your office when Felicity was helping with the emails, I was surprised to see that you two seemed like you were still…close." She closed her eyes briefly. "So I wouldn't be human if I didn't wonder about it. And now I see that you talk to her _every day_. That's a lot of calls to someone who is supposed to be your ex. If I'm just a diversion while you and she work things out, Oliver, I have a right to know that."

He stared at her for a moment, and then to her surprise, smiled. "Susan, are you jealous?"

She frowned. "No, of course not." She paused and then amended, "Well, maybe a little. The two of you have a lot of history, and when I saw how pretty she is and how smart she is…I wouldn't be human if I didn't wonder."

Oliver's smile grew broader, and he reached over to pull her into his arms. "Susan, I told you that day that Felicity and I want the same things for Star City. We have some…projects…that we work on together to help the city. They started years ago, when we first met, and they're still continuing. When she and I talk on the phone, it's about those projects – that's all. There's nothing else between us."

Susan ran her hand along his heavily-muscled bicep. "Projects to help the city? Shouldn't they be managed out of City Hall, now that you're the mayor? Why keep working them on the side like this?" The minute the question was out of her mouth, she wished she could take it back. Because if she made Oliver think too much about it, he might decide to hire Felicity as part of his staff - and daily phone calls would be replaced by daily meetings with his pretty, young ex."

Fortunately, Oliver didn't take her suggestion seriously. "Things are working fine the way they are," he said easily. "Why mess with it?" He ran one hand lightly down her bare back, stopping to cup her butt cheek lightly. "And talking about messing around...Since we're both awake and neither of us have to be at work for a couple of hours…" He began kissing her neck, and then quickly flipped them both over until she was on her back and he lay poised above her.

Susan glanced briefly at his face before allowing herself over to close her eyes and run her hands up and down his back. As always, Oliver was skilled and considerate in bed and she could feel things beginning to build toward a climax. She felt lucky to on the receiving end of his attraction and attention.

She only wished she hadn't noticed that fleeting, wistful look that came into his eyes each time she mentioned Felicity Smoak's name.

* * *

A few weeks went by and Oliver was true to his word when it came to Felicity. The former couple continued to talk regularly, but Susan never got any sense that their discussions were about more than the "projects" Oliver had said they shared. Whatever those projects were, they rarely necessitated Felicity coming to the mayor's office. Susan saw the blonde once or twice in passing, but that was all. She began to feel more secure about her relationship with Oliver.

One relatively calm Wednesday she decided to surprise him by bringing lunch to his office in City Hall. It seemed like a good plan; he often forgot to eat when he worked through the noon hour, and she knew he loved the food from Big Belly Burger (even though he bemoaned the fat and salt). He was sitting at his desk behind a stack of papers when she arrived, and his eyes lit up when he saw her – and the bag of burgers and fries.

"Well, hello," he said with a smile. He pointed to the bag. "Big Belly?"

She nodded, smiling back. "I figured you could use a break, and I knew you wouldn't bother to get lunch on your own."

"How thoughtful of you. I trust you got a burger for yourself, so I'll have company in my sinful, high caloric meal?"

"I don't think you need to worry about the calories, Oliver. You're in terrific shape, especially for a man who has a desk job. But, yes, I got a burger for myself. I even got a shake."

"Great. Drag that other chair over here and let's eat."

She followed his instructions and soon they were diving into their burgers and talking easily. Susan felt happy. It was good to see Oliver relaxed and contented, and it gave her tremendous pleasure to know she was the reason for his current good mood. They were discussing their plans for the upcoming weekend when she heard a low rumble and felt the floor tremble.

Oliver froze instantly. "Did you feel that?"

Susan nodded. "Yes. Do you think it was an earthquake?"

"I don't know."

They stared blankly at each other and waited anxiously for a second tremor. Thankfully, one didn't come. Susan was just beginning to breathe normally again when the phone on Oliver's desk lit up, followed by the urgent sound of sirens outside and the angry buzz of his mobile. All at once, it seemed like everyone was trying to reach the mayor's office. Oliver glanced briefly at his cell but opted to answer the desk phone, his duties as mayor taking priority. "Yes?" he said, his hand white-knuckled on the receiver.

There was a long pause while he listened. Susan watched his brow furrow and his eyes narrow in concern. "I see," he said after a moment. "Do we know how many are hurt?" There was another lengthy pause. "Okay. Please keep me posted, especially if you get any information on who might be behind it. I'll head down there in a little while. I don't want to disrupt the rescue efforts."

He put down the phone and ran his hand over his face wearily. "There was a bomb planted in the police station," he explained to Susan, his voice shaking slightly. "That's the noise we heard and the vibration we felt. Someone tried to blow up the station." He shook his head in disbelief and Susan could see a tiny bit of moisture in the corner of his eyes. She was struck once more by how deeply he loved his city and how personally he took its hurts. His cell phone began vibrating furiously again. He glanced briefly at it, but didn't answer.

"Do they know," Susan said gently, "do they know if anyone was killed?" She'd almost asked _do they_ _know how many were killed_ , but had stopped herself just in time. Even though it was hard to believe that _everyone_ in the station could have survived a blast felt four blocks away, there was no point in driving that point home. Oliver had enough to deal with; she didn't want to make it any worse.

He shrugged helplessly. "They don't know yet. They think there might be additional devices hidden so they're sending in the bomb squad and the dogs to clear the station before they'll let the paramedics in to check. We probably won't know for another hour." He exhaled loudly in frustration.

"Ollie?"

Susan and Oliver both looked up to see Thea standing in the doorway. Susan was surprised by the young woman's expression. If Oliver was shaken by the bombing, Thea looked completely distraught - although her pain appeared to be on her brother's behalf rather than her own. She peered at Oliver anxiously, almost cautiously, as if she thought he might fall apart. There was tremendous sorrow in her eyes.

"Thea," Oliver said reassuringly, "it's _not_ an earthquake. I just spoke with the police chief. Someone exploded a bomb in the SCPD station a few blocks away. It's bad, but it's not a repeat of four years ago."

She didn't acknowledge his statement. Instead, she pointed at his cell phone, still vibrating on the desk. "You're not answering your phone. Curtis has been trying to call you."

Oliver shook his head. "I'll talk to Curtis later. This isn't the time, Speedy…"

She cut him off. "Curtis has been trying to call you," she continued in an unsteady voice, "to tell you that he thinks Felicity was… _is_ …in the police station. She went there to have lunch with Detective Malone about twenty minutes before the bomb went off. Curtis tried calling her right after the explosion, but her cell just keeps flipping to voicemail. We don't know if…" her voice trailed off.

Oliver stared at his sister and went still – so still that for a few seconds Susan believed he didn't understand what Thea had just told him. His face was blank, as if translating her words into English from a foreign language. She could almost see when those words sunk in because the blank look became an expression of fear, of truly naked despair. He glanced blindly at his desk, and at his still-vibrating cell phone.

Then he moved into action as if someone had flipped a switch.

He picked up the phone. "Curtis," he said crisply into it, "Talk to me. Do you know which floor Malone's desk is on?" He listened intently and then continued in a business-like voice, "Good. Bring the floor plan to the station. And don't bother to call the team – it'll take them too long to get there. I can be at the station in five minutes if I run. I'll meet you at the South entrance." He ended the call and looked up at his sister. "I'm going to the station to get Felicity out," he said calmly, as if telling her he was headed to the store for a loaf of bread. "Can you keep trying to call her? You might actually get through to her phone and if she's conscious, she can tell us exactly where she is." He paused, then added, "And maybe you should call Digg as well. He would want to know about this."

Thea nodded, and didn't seem surprised by his plan. Like Oliver, she looked better now that she had something to do. She headed out of his office, cell phone raised to her ear.

Susan, on the other hand, couldn't believe what she was hearing. Less than five minutes ago Oliver had told her that the police thought there still might be explosives in the station and had called in the bomb squad to check. Now he was planning to go there – to go _inside_? As Oliver pulled off his tie and started moving toward his office doorway, she grabbed his arm. "Oliver," she said urgently, "What are you doing? You just told me the bomb squad needs to clear the station. You can't go in there yet. Wait until they've done their job – then you can go in and find her."

He shrugged her hand off and barely looked at her. "Felicity could be bleeding out," he said shortly. "I can't wait an hour for the station to be cleared. She could be dead by then."

"Oliver…"

"I'll call you later."

And he was gone, running down the hallway.

* * *

It took Susan twenty minutes to walk the four blocks from City Hall to the police station. Like most disasters, it was a scene of organized chaos; cruisers parked with their lights flashing, ambulances ready to take the injured to the hospital, and police on foot everywhere – talking over the radio and on cell phones, their faces narrowed in concern for their fellow officers still inside the building. There were barricades all around the station to keep the public at a safe distance, and Susan wondered how or even if Oliver had managed to slip by them. As mayor, he was very recognizable. She searched the crowd for his face but couldn't find him among the more than hundred people milling about.

She decided to position herself such that she could see as many entrances to the building as possible. If Oliver had somehow made it into the station, then he would be coming back out through one of those doors. It seemed the best way to find him. She edged her way through the crowd until she was able to see both the front and side entrances, and then elbowed her way up to one of the barriers. The bomb squad appeared to be using the front door. She watched a couple of men in blast-suits go in, one with a bomb-sniffing dog on a leash. She was encouraged to hear that a number of the officers who were in the building at the time of the blast had managed to get out on their own. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Felicity.

After what felt like an eternity but was less than ten minutes, she saw the alleyway door open and a man come out, carrying a woman in his arms. The man's face and hair were covered in dust and the woman was wrapped in his suit jacket, but there was no mistaking Oliver and Felicity. He walked carefully down the stairs, holding her as if she were made of glass. Reaching the alley, he moved quickly through the shadows until he reached the sidewalk and then the crowd barrier, passing by it to be absorbed into the mass of people watching the station. Straining to keep him in sight, Susan saw him greet two African-American men; both tall, one on the slighter side with glasses and the other looking strong enough to lift a car. The three men gazed at Felicity, lying limp in Oliver's arms, and appeared to have a discussion. Then Oliver nodded and headed purposefully toward the ambulances. Susan called out his name and tried to move to meet him, but before she could get close Oliver was inside the ambulance and the door was closing. He was still holding Felicity, and he never once looked up.

She turned back in the direction of the two African-American men, surprised to see that the strong one had already vanished. The slighter one was exiting the crowd, moving toward the street. He was almost in the clear when Susan caught up with him.

"Are you Curtis?"

The man looked at her in surprise. There was a flash of recognition in his eyes before he nodded his head. "I am. And you're Oliver's…friend, Susan Williams."

"Yes. Is Felicity all right?" There didn't seem to be any point in wasting time on introductions or pretending they both didn't know what Oliver had just done.

Curtis shrugged. "We think so…we think she just has a concussion. Oliver's getting her to the hospital now to be sure."

Susan shook her head. "I can't believe he went in there. He could have been killed. The bomb squad hasn't cleared the place."

Curtis gave her a small smile. "Well, it was Felicity, after all," he replied, as if that explained everything. When she narrowed her eyes in confusion he added, "They have a lot of history."

"Still…"

"If it's any reassurance, if their positions had been reversed, I'm pretty sure she would have done the same for him."

"But they broke their engagement months ago. They're not a couple."

"No," he agreed, "they're not a couple." He gazed off in the distance for a few seconds before returning his eyes to hers. "Oliver and Felicity – it's hard to explain. They're something besides a couple, something…stronger. I've only known them for about a year, but I'm convinced that Oliver and Felicity together form a complete…" he struggled for a word, "being. When they work together, amazing things happen." He suddenly seemed to remember who he was speaking to and stopped abruptly. "Don't mind me," he said apologetically, "I'm just rambling. It's been a difficult day, and it's not over yet." He glanced down the street. "I really should be going. It was nice meeting you." And with a polite nod, he walked away.

Susan watched him go, with a sinking feeling in her heart.

* * *

Susan didn't hear from Oliver for over 24 hours. He was tied up the rest of the day of the explosion, talking to the police chief, fielding calls from the governor's office, and refusing to leave until the status of everyone in the building was known. He had waved to Susan briefly from inside the crowd barriers, but hadn't walked over to talk to her. In the end, eight people had lost their lives and another two dozen were badly injured. Fortunately, as Oliver had suspected, Felicity had made it through the ordeal with only a bad concussion. The hospital kept her overnight for observation and released her the next morning. Susan suspected Oliver had spent the night at the hospital.

It wasn't until the evening of the day after the bombing that Susan had the chance to talk to Oliver. She'd been busy herself, broadcasting for most of that morning from in front of the police station. The work had been helpful. It had kept her from thinking about things too much, from thinking about Oliver too much. He arrived at her apartment a little after 9:00 pm. By then, she'd had a few hours to reflect in the quiet of her home. Susan was a big believer in trusting her instincts - they were part of being a good reporter. They helped her find stories and they helped her during interviews. She'd often thought her intuition was as good as any mechanical lie detector. She could tell when people weren't being honest, even with themselves.

Oliver walked in with a weary look on his face. "God, it's good to see you." When she glanced up but didn't answer, he added, "I'm sorry to have been out of pocket for the last day. It's been pretty crazy, and it's probably going to stay that way for the next couple of weeks. I was hoping you wouldn't mind if we just went straight to bed tonight. I could use a friend and some sleep."

His blue eyes were looking at her hopefully and Susan felt her resolutions start to melt. She'd spent the early evening rehearsing what she had to do, but now that the moment had come she wasn't sure she had the strength to do it. Oliver Queen was smart and sexy and it would be so much easier just to say yes. But it would be a lie – even if Oliver didn't know it.

She took a deep breath. "I don't think that's a good idea, Oliver," she said with forced calm. She pointed to the small bag she had packed containing his toiletries and spare clothing. "I think it's time we stopped pretending that this thing between us is anything more than it is – a diversion. We should stop acting as if we have any kind of a future."

Oliver frowned, and a confused, hurt look came into his eyes. "Susan, I don't understand…" he began.

"I think we should stop seeing each other, Oliver."

He sat down heavily on the sofa, as if someone had knocked his feet out from under him. "Is this because I went to get Felicity after the bomb yesterday?" he asked, puzzled. "Please don't read too much into that. We're friends – we've known each other for five years – and I couldn't let her die. It doesn't mean there's something more between us. Hell, she has a boyfriend now." He raised both hands to press his temples in a gesture of frustration. "Susan – you and I - we're good together. This," he pointed back and forth between them, "is good."

Susan wanted to believe it. She wanted so badly to believe _him_. But her instincts, her damned reporter's instincts were telling her something different. She could feel the moisture pooling in her eyes and she dabbed at them shakily. "Tell me, Oliver. Do you ever envision a time in the future when Felicity is _not_ a part of your life?" she asked. "Or is she always there, no matter what the circumstances?"

"I don't think…" Oliver started, and then stopped. He looked at Susan, surprised, and she could see that he had never thought about it – at least never in that way before. Then he slowly lowered his gaze to the floor.

"That's what I thought."

"Susan…"

She shook her head. "Don't apologize, Oliver. It's who you are – who you _both_ are. You can't change it, even if you want to. The only bad thing would be pretending that's not the case."

He stared at her for a long moment. She could read the confusion, regret and pain in his eyes. But she also thought she could see a little hope. She wondered how long it would take him to bring this argument to Felicity and convince her that they belonged together. He slowly rose from the couch and picked up the overnight bag. "Goodbye, Susan."

"Goodbye, Oliver."

She was not surprised when, six months later, there was an announcement from the Mayor's office saying that Oliver Queen was once again engaged to Felicity Smoak.


	8. Friction

_A/N: This was written after 5X14 - the episode in which Thea and Felicity band together to discredit Oliver's journalist girlfriend, Susan Williams. I had mixed feelings about Oliver's response to Thea in that episode and some of that comes out in this chapter, including some points I wish Felicity or Thea had made to him._

 _Overall, I'm a little disappointed with how S5 seems to want to pretend that the Oliver/Felicity relationship never happened. For two people who were on the brink of marriage, they're awfully casual with each other now. You'll see a little of that in this chapter, too._

 _And finally, what does Felicity do with herself all day? Does she really spend every waking minute in the lair?_

 _Happy reading, and thanks to the folks who continue to add any one of my stories to their fav's or follows. It's a kick every time I see the number go up._

* * *

Oliver Queen didn't have a lot of practice being friends with his exes. The depressing truth was that most of his former girlfriends had either died (Shado, Laurel), moved far away (McKenna, Samantha), or had died, come back to life, and _then_ moved far away (Sara). There was Helena, of course, but she was in prison which was pretty similar to being far away. There wasn't much chance he was going to bump into her when he picked up his Americano at the coffee shop.

Which left Felicity.

Felicity…the woman he'd been closer to than any of them. The woman he'd lived with, proposed to, and damn-near married. The woman he'd been absurdly intimate with, both physically and emotionally; the woman who knew every fucking inch of his skin – every scar, every bit of ink, and that ticklish spot on the back of his thigh just below his butt cheek.

The woman he saw nearly every day.

Felicity - the _ex-iest_ ex of them all. Once a lover and fiancée, now reclassified as what? A colleague? A pal? Or as he'd told her years ago when he was in denial about his feelings – a partner? What exactly were the rules of engagement for working with someone he'd once been _that_ close to, especially when he was in the early stages of what might turn out to be a real relationship with Susan Williams? Was he allowed to make references to their past experiences, their past life together? Was it okay to compliment her when he liked her outfit and thought she looked particularly pretty (which was nearly always)? Could he still touch her - hold her hand – the way he used to even before they became a couple? It was all very confusing. Oliver was in a quandary and Felicity wasn't exactly providing him with a lot of clues.

So he did what any mature, self-respecting male would do in the situation.

He acted as if their relationship had never existed.

He acted as if she were just another member of Team Arrow; _Overwatch_ \- the same way that Rene was _Wild Dog_ or Curtis was _Mr. Terrific_. Well…almost the same. He didn't bark out orders at her like he did at Rene, Curtis or even Dinah. He was pretty sure that if he did, she'd take his head off. But in every other respect, she performed her job in the lair like everyone else and he treated her like everyone else. And by some unspoken agreement, she made no reference to their prior life together either. It was all pretty...professional.

And professional was good, he reminded himself. Professional avoided a lot of awkwardness, not only between him and Felicity, but with the whole team. Professional kept operations running like a well-oiled machine; it was efficient, focused and accurate. It held inconvenient emotions at bay. Professional was…well, _professional_.

Every once in a while, however, _professional_ would slip just a little. The two of them would be alone in the lair and she would mention that she thought he was a good man. His heart would flutter for a minute or two before settling back down. Or she would give him the tiniest of touches – a finger on his hand, a tap on the chest – and he'd feel a spark of warmth in his body. He tried not to acknowledge these feelings because it was better if they stayed buried, but that wasn't always easy to do. He'd actually expected _professional_ to fall by the wayside when he killed Billy Malone, but Felicity had been remarkably contained. She'd told him she knew Prometheus was responsible and rarely brought up Billy again. Any grieving that she'd done had been conducted in private and Oliver had been spared seeing her pain.

The biggest lapse in _professional_ was eventually instigated not by him or Felicity, but by Thea. Concerned that Susan suspected he was the Green Arrow, Thea planted evidence that discredited Susan and led to her losing her job as a reporter. Oliver was upset, to put it mildly. Yes, there was a risk that Susan would out him as the Green Arrow, but he was handling it. Getting Susan fired for plagiarism was an unethical act anld he told Thea so; forcefully and multiple times.

As a result, there were a couple of tense days where he and Thea didn't speak, and it wasn't much of an exaggeration to say that a black cloud hung over City Hall. Ultimately, though, he explained to his sister that his reaction was motivated more by concern for her than by anger, or even support for Susan. He wanted to see his sister be the honorable person he knew she was, not follow their mother down that slippery slope of the ends justifying the means. Oliver felt confident that Thea understood and that things were back on track between the two of them. Oliver also believed that Felicity was unaware of his blow-up with Thea.

Oliver was naive.

That became clear a few evenings later when he walked into the lair to find Thea and Felicity huddled in close conference on the computer platform. Both women stared at him as he stepped off the elevator, and he felt that shiver of fear that men experience when the females in their lives conspire against them. Felicity was regarding him with an odd expression on her face – perplexed and not exactly angry, but certainly not welcoming either. It was a look that sometimes preceded her Loud Voice.

Thea was the first to speak. "Well, thanks for listening, Felicity. I appreciate the time. I'm going to head home now. It's been a long day and I need to be at work early in the morning. Ollie, I'll see you tomorrow at City Hall." And without further explanation, she got in the elevator, leaving Oliver and Felicity alone.

Oliver rolled a chair next to Felicity and sat down. "Are you going to tell me what that was about?"

She raised one eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Based on the looks I received when I walked in here, I have the feeling the two of you were discussing me. And not in a good way."

She sighed and turned her chair to face him more directly. "We _were_ discussing you," she confirmed quietly. "Thea was telling me about your response to Susan getting fired. It sounds like you came down pretty hard on your sister."

He snorted irritably. "I was _honest_ with her, Felicity, not hard. I didn't like what she did and I told her so. Not only did Susan lose her job because of Thea, but with allegations of plagiarism she's not likely to find another one as a journalist. Planting evidence was an unethical thing to do and Thea should be better than that."

Felicity stared at him for a few seconds. Oliver got the sense that there were things she wanted to say but was considering carefully before she said them. Finally, she replied, "Thea did what she did because she loves you. She was afraid Susan was going to tell the world that you're the Green Arrow. And we both know that wouldn't be good." When he didn't respond, she added in a voice that wasn't quite so calm, "Susan isn't exactly a paragon of virtue, you know. I hacked her computer, Oliver. She's got hundreds of photos and files on you. She's clearly been investigating you for months and she started before the two of you ever began dating. It's hardly _ethical_ for a journalist to sleep with the subject of her investigation."

He frowned, refusing to argue the relative merits of Thea's and Susan's conduct. "That still doesn't justify Thea's actions," he said tersely, "or yours either, for that matter. Thea couldn't have done what she did without your help."

Her eyes grew wide behind her glasses and her cheeks flushed. "You're mad that I hacked Susan's computer? You haven't had a problem with my hacking in the past. Is it because I found some inconvenient truths about your girlfriend that you're so upset now?"

Her tone on the word _girlfriend_ surprised him. Thea had been consistently vocal about her dislike of Susan but Felicity had been relatively circumspect. He wondered if she were more upset about his new relationship than she'd let on. He shook his head. "This is about Thea doing what's right, not about me defending my girlfriend. I don't want Thea to become like our mother, where she'll do anything to protect the people she loves, no matter how terrible. It would have been one thing to delete the files Susan had on me, or to come talk to me about what the two of you had found. But for Thea to get her fired-"

"Oliver, I've lost three jobs because of my Arrow work. You pulled me out of my IT position at QC to be your EA – without my consent, I might add - and then _that_ job disappeared when you gave away the company. The Palmer Tech board fired me as CEO because they questioned my commitment. I was spending too much time out of the office working Arrow duties. You never seemed particularly upset about _me_ losing _my_ jobs."

Oliver blinked in frustration. "This is different, Felicity," he said impatiently. "You had a choice and you're not discredited. You can _still_ have a career in a technology company if you want. The situations aren't the same at all." He heard the anger in his voice and tried to temper it. In a few short sentences they had moved away from the topic of Thea and Susan into more personal Oliver-Felicity territory. _Professional_ had apparently taken a coffee break and stepped out of the room. "You know, Felicity," he said more evenly, "I've never said I expect you to spend every waking hour down here and not have another job. I appreciate everything you're doing to find Prometheus, and believe me, I realize it's important, but I think it might actually be good for you to do something else to create balance in your life. You've been spending a _lot_ of time hacking lately. Maybe you're losing touch with the real world."

She frowned at him incredulously and opened her mouth, but before she could respond the elevator door opened and Rene and Diggle walked into the lair.

"What's on the agenda for tonight?" Rene asked cheerfully, oblivious to the tension. "Any new leads on Prometheus?"

And in the blink of an eye, Felicity snapped back into _professional_. She rolled her chair away from Oliver's and turned to face Rene and John. "No new leads on Prometheus," she replied matter-of-factly, "but I've been seeing some unusual activity in a warehouse down on the waterfront. It belongs to a company that went bankrupt a year ago so you'd think it would be deserted, but there's a steady stream of large crates being offloaded into it. Makes me wonder if it's weaponry of some kind…or _something_ illegal." Oliver had to hand it to her. Aside from a slightly higher pitch to her voice, you would never know the two of them had just been having a heated exchange.

But of course, Diggle wouldn't miss it. John glanced between the two of them curiously and then shrugged. "We could have a look at the warehouse, unless there's something else we should be investigating?" He made it a question.

Oliver shook his head. "I don't have anything else for tonight. Dinah's on duty, so the three of us should check it out." He looked cautiously at Felicity but she appeared to have transitioned fully into _Overwatch_. She had the warehouse specs up on the computer and was studying them intently. He felt vaguely relieved that their discussion about her Arrow/life balance was over.

"For a company that went bankrupt, there's some expensive security on this place," she said. "All the entrances have electronic locks and motion sensors. I'll talk you through them when you get there."

"Sounds good," Oliver replied, giving her a small nod. She continued staring thoughtfully at her computer screens and he silently gave thanks for _professional_. It was good that they could put their personal issues aside and focus on the mission.

Oliver had to rethink _professional_ thirty minutes later, however, when they arrived at the warehouse and split up to cover difference entrances. It quickly became clear that tonight wasn't going to be business as usual, at least not for him. Rene and John received Felicity's typical friendly banter over the comms. He received cool, polite communications.

" _Spartan, the code to your door is one-nine-eight-seven. Hey, that's the year_ Nirvana _was formed. I love that song,_ Come as You Are _. Sit tight and I'll have your motion sensor disabled in a jiffy. There's also a security guard coming toward you on your right. He's armed, but I can't tell you with what. You should really teach me about this stuff some time. I think I could be a lot more effective if I knew more about weapons."_

" _Wild Dog, it looks like the floor near your entrance is wet. I can't tell exactly what the liquid is but be careful. I don't want you to slip and ruin that awesome jersey. Can you make me one, by the way? I'd feel really badass if I could wear a shirt like that."_

" _Green Arrow, your door code is four-four-six-two. Motion sensor disabled."_

And so it went.

It turned out that the crates did _not_ contain weaponry but something much more benign, although still illegal. They were filled with stolen furniture and appliances destined for _Fred's Discount Store_ in the Glades. The warehouse held equipment to remove the old serial numbers and replace them with new ones, and Oliver figured the whole operation explained how _Fred_ was able to sell at such a deep discount. He also suspected that revealing _Fred_ as a seller of stolen goods was not going to be one of The Arrow's more popular activities. People loved shopping at _Fred's_. He was pretty sure Dinah had just furnished her new apartment entirely with stuff from the store.

In the end, they decided it was up to the police to determine _Fred's_ fate. They alerted SCPD to the activity and headed back to the lair.

Felicity was shutting her computers down when they got there. Rene raised his eyebrows in surprise. "It's early, Blondie. You going home already?"

She nodded. "It's been suggested that I spend a lot of time here and need to have more balance in my life. I thought I'd start with tonight."

Rene laughed. "I personally think balance is overrated, but I won't say _no_ to an early night. Plus I want to check the serial numbers on my refrigerator and microwave. I think they might be from _Fred's_." He motioned for Felicity to join him. "C'mon, I'll walk you out." Then he raised his hand briefly to Oliver and Diggle. "And I'll see you guys tomorrow."

Diggle watched the elevator doors close in front of Rene and Felicity and then turned to Oliver.

"So, you gonna tell me what's going on?"

Oliver was pretty sure he knew what Diggle was talking about, but didn't want to assume too much. "What do you mean, John?"

Diggle smiled wryly and shook his head. "Fine, if that's the way you want to play it, Oliver. I sensed a little friction between you and Felicity tonight. I'm guessing you're the one who suggested she needs more balance in her life?"

Oliver sighed. "I did, although I'm not quite sure how we got there. One minute we were talking about Thea and Susan and the next I'm telling Felicity that she spends too much time down here." He gave John a summary of the conversation, curious to hear his friend's reaction.

When he was finished, Diggle raised his eyebrows and said, "Wow."

"Is that ' _Wow - I'm with you, Oliver'_ or ' _Wow - you really screwed up, Oliver'_?"

Diggle laughed. "A little of both, I think. I understand your concerns for Thea and it makes sense that you want her to act honorably. On the other hand, I also get where Felicity is coming from when she talks about Susan not behaving ethically. You have a history of blindly defending girlfriends, Oliver, even when evidence of their wrongdoing is right in front of your eyes. Look at your psycho-ex-girlfriend, Helena."

Oliver frowned. "You're comparing Susan to Helena?"

"I don't think she's a psycho like Helena, but -yeah - I question her motives. She was investigating you before she started dating you. So, did she get involved with you because she likes you or because you're a good story?"

Oliver shrugged. "I'm not sure it matters at this point. Whatever made her first go out with me, I can tell now that she really cares." He sat down in Felicity's chair and gave Diggle a rueful look. "Or at least she did, until Thea got her fired. Right now she's not answering my calls."

"Sorry to hear it."

"Really?"

Diggle laughed again and wheeled a chair over near Oliver's. "Maybe…I'm not sure. I want to see you happy, but I'll admit I'm not a huge Susan fan. Dating a reporter when you're trying to maintain a secret identity just seems like a bad idea."

Oliver exhaled heavily but didn't respond, and they sat in companionable silence for a couple of minutes. Finally, Oliver had to ask, "And what about Felicity? Was I wrong to tell her she needs to spend more time away from the lair?"

Diggle thought about that one. "Once again, Oliver, I think the answer is yes and no," he said slowly. "In principle, I agree that Felicity deserves a life outside of Team Arrow. She's an amazing woman and I think she can make her mark on the world in many ways, not just down here."

"But?"

"But I question your timing. If we're going to have a chance of finding and stopping Prometheus, we need her dedicated to the job. You know we can't do it without her."

Oliver sighed. "I know. And I'm sorry I created friction between us. It can't help the mission."

Diggle shook his head. "I'm going to disagree with you on that one. A little friction between you and Felicity is normal. For as long as the three of us have worked together, I've seen you guys find reasons to butt heads." He broke out into a smile. "Typically; the two of you disagree, Felicity does something amazing and proves you wrong, you make up, and peace once again rules in the lair. That dynamic's been missing the last few months and, frankly, I was a little worried about it. But – hey - you fixed it tonight, Oliver. She sounded pretty pissed off when she spoke to you over the comms."

"Funny, John, very funny."

Diggle's grin faded. "Seriously, Oliver," he said more soberly, "Are you really prepared for Felicity to spend less time down here? My guess is you've gotten used to her being here anytime you drop by. You know she's going to take you at your word about finding balance."

Oliver shrugged. "For a little while. Then she'll be back in here, full steam ahead."

Diggle looked doubtful. "We'll see."

* * *

As he often did, Diggle read Felicity better than Oliver. Several weeks went by and she resolutely stuck to her plan to spend more time outside of the lair. She was there for all the critical missions and continued her tireless search for information on Prometheus, but Oliver could no longer assume he'd find her in front of her computers any time of the day or night.

And as Diggle had predicted, he didn't like it. He told himself that he didn't want her to lose focus, but the reality was that he liked knowing where she was at all times – knowing he could find her when he needed her. And with Prometheus on the loose, he told himself, the lair was also a safer place for her to be. Now, he had to worry about where she was and what she was up to.

On the brighter side, Felicity was able to help him repair his relationship with Susan. A little creative hacking and Susan's bosses were convinced that the plagiarism evidence had indeed been planted. Susan received an apology and her job back, and Oliver received some very good make-up sex. It brought a grin to his face every time he thought about it and he felt a little more of that balance that he had encouraged Felicity to find in her life.

"You wanna tell me what's got you so happy these days?" Diggle asked him one night when they were alone in the lair, sparring with bo staffs.

Oliver smiled sheepishly and evaded John's low strike. "Susan and I worked things out. We're back together."

"Well, good for you. How'd you manage that?" John blocked his cross strike easily.

Oliver shrugged as he made a low sweep. "I asked Felicity to fix the plagiarism data – to make it clear to Susan's bosses that it was planted."

Diggle frowned at him and stepped back quickly, dropping his staff to the floor. Oliver was barely able to avoid smacking him on the side of the head. "I'm sorry – can you repeat that? You did what?" John asked in surprise.

Oliver let his staff fall loosely to his side. "I asked Felicity to clear up the plagiarism data," he repeated. "Once she did, Susan got her job back _and_ realized that I wasn't responsible for her losing it in the first place. We're good now."

Diggle retrieved a towel and wiped his forehead. "Let me get this straight," he said to Oliver incredulously. "You asked your ex-fiancee to help you get back together with your current girlfriend."

Oliver nodded. "Yeah."

"And it actually worked?"

"Yeah."

"You're crazy. _And_ you're one lucky son of a bitch. Most women would have told you to take a long walk off a short pier. I can't believe Felicity agreed to do it."

Oliver thought about that. The absurdity of asking Felicity to help him patch things up with Susan really hadn't struck him until now. "Yeah…I guess I am lucky," he replied.

Diggle shook his head. "Man, you just used up about five years of favors. I hope you don't need one from Felicity soon."

Oliver frowned pensively. "So, it sounds like Felicity didn't say anything about it? I figured she might have talked to you."

Diggle tossed his towel aside and picked up the bo staff once more. "No, Oliver, she didn't tell me about it. But then she's pretty busy these days. I don't see her as much as I used to."

"Do you know what she's up to?"

Diggle assumed a fighting stance with the staff. "Sorry, Oliver, no I don't. But she seems okay. Maybe getting a little balance in her life was a good suggestion after all."

"Maybe," Oliver agreed, although he wasn't at all convinced. He tapped his staff against John's and they resumed sparring.

* * *

The physical changes in Felicity were subtle; so subtle that for a week or so Oliver figured he was imagining them. She'd always been trim, and over the last couple of years had taken to working out so that she maintained respectable muscle tone in her shoulders, arms and legs. It had been 397 days since they'd last slept together (but who was counting?), so he was ready to admit that his memories of her body might be a little inaccurate. For a while he couldn't be sure if the additional muscle he was noticing was real or not.

His uncertainty was erased one night when they returned from a mission and he watched her at the computers, typing rapidly and moving between keyboards. It was an exceptionally warm spring evening and Felicity was wearing a soft sundress with thin straps for shoulders. Her deltoids flexed as she reached forward and he observed that her biceps and triceps were more pronounced as well. When she got up and headed for home, she looked leaner. It was clear she was using some of her time away from the lair to intensify her workout routine. Oliver wondered why. None of the reasons he could come up with were particularly good.

He turned to Diggle and Rene, still cleaning up after their mission. "Are one of you training Felicity?" he asked suspiciously.

Both gave him blank looks and neither said anything.

"You must have noticed that she's gotten very fit recently," he continued impatiently. "I was wondering if she's preparing to go out in the field and asked one of you to train her."

Rene grinned. "You checkin' out Blondie's body, Hoss? I mean, I wouldn't blame you if you were - she's pretty hot - but I thought you were still hooked up with that reporter."

Oliver glared at him. "This is about Felicity's safety, not her body. Every once in a while she decides she wants to get out from behind the computers. It's not a good idea. So I want to know if she talked one of you into preparing her for the field."

Rene and John looked at each other and then both shook their heads. "No," they replied in unison, and John added, "I haven't noticed her training any harder than usual, Oliver."

"What about Dinah? Maybe this is some kind of girl-bonding thing?"

John frowned. "When would Dinah have time? Working for the SCPD keeps her fully occupied when she's not down here."

Oliver nodded reluctantly. "That's true. So neither of you have any idea what Felicity's up to?"

They shook their heads again. Rene shrugged. "Maybe she's taking one of those Zumba classes or something," he offered. "She's looks great and she seems happy. Why worry about it?" He slung his jacket over his shoulder and started for the elevator. When he got there he turned back to Oliver with a teasing grin. "Hey, Hoss, since the two of you aren't a couple any more, do you think there's a chance she'll go out with me? Maybe you can put in a good word? She really _is_ hot."

He ducked when Oliver threw his phone at him.

* * *

Oliver didn't think there was any way Zumba could account for Felicity's new muscle-tone and he continued to worry about her latest clandestine, non-Arrow activity. He even considered asking her what she was up to, but they were back to _professional_ these days and commenting on her body changes really didn't fit with _professional_. What was he supposed to say: _Hey Felicity, I was checking you out when you were on the computers last night and your triceps look awesome?_

So he stewed about it for several days. And finally, he came up with a game plan. A very simple game plan.

He followed her.

He knew that following her didn't exactly fit with _professional_ either, but he was fresh out of ideas and he needed to know what she was doing. He kept note of the times she came and left the lair and discovered that she arrived consistently late on Thursday evenings. So the next Thursday he told his City Hall aide to cancel his meetings. He then clapped a baseball cap on his head, dressed in jeans and a hoodie, and staked out Felicity's loft, starting early in the morning. It was a bit of a creepy thing to do - he knew that - but he told himself that he was doing it out of concern for her welfare. He also knew that it was going to be a long, slow day and thought briefly about asking John to join him, but decided the pleasure of company wouldn't be worth the grief and the lecture he'd receive for stalking Felicity. In fact, he determined it was best not to tell _anyone_ about this.

Felicity wasn't exactly an early riser and he observed little activity at the loft until 9:00 in the morning. Then she sat with coffee and her tablet on the balcony for a good hour – still in pajamas – before eventually emerging from the building with her hair in its usual ponytail, wearing a blue, sleeveless dress. She ran a series of errands - drugstore, computer store, oil change for her car - and eventually wound up at the lair in the early afternoon. He was pleased to see that finding Prometheus was evidently still high on her list of priorities. But then she left the lair sometime around 4:00 and headed back to the loft, coming out a short while later in workout clothes and getting into her car. _Aha…now we're getting somewhere_ , he thought.

Oliver followed her car to a large warehouse on the edge of the Glades, careful to keep the bike at a respectful distance. There were a number of cars already parked in a lot in front of the building and she left hers among them and headed inside. She looked eager, almost running to the door. Oliver felt a prickle of worry. The warehouse hardly looked reputable.

He gave it a minute and then went through the door quietly, his senses on high alert. He hoped to observe her without being seen, but was ready to grab her and run if necessary. The warehouse really was in a pretty seedy area.

And then he stopped.

It was a climbing gym. The disreputable-looking warehouse on the edge of the Glades had been converted into a five-story climbing gym, with hand-holds built into the walls and hooks for carabiners. It was brightly lit, filled with normal, non-criminal looking people, and there was a general sense of positive energy. A quick glance around revealed men and women clinging to just about every vertical surface, looking like Spiderman in workout clothes. Small groups were clustered together on the floor and Oliver guessed that they were climbing classes. He positioned himself behind one of the tall, metal beams and watched.

Felicity made her way over to one of the groups and waved in greeting. There were four men, one of whom Oliver figured must be the instructor. He was on the small side, maybe 3 or 4 inches taller than Felicity, but he looked like he was in peak condition, with well-defined muscles and little body fat. His hair was blonde, his eyes a vivid blue, and he smiled delightedly as she joined the group. Oliver couldn't help noticing that the man looked younger than he was, closer to Felicity's age. She smiled warmly back at him and Oliver felt an instant dislike for the guy.

His dislike intensified as he watched Felicity's class put on their climbing harnesses. The instructor glanced at the three men to make sure they'd donned theirs correctly, but evidently felt compelled to check Felicity's harness more carefully. His hands went to her waist and then her shoulders to verify the snugness, before wandering around to rest on her lower back. By the look on her face, she didn't mind all that much.

After damn near fondling Felicity for what seemed to Oliver to be far too long, the instructor finally led the class to a section of the wall and pointed to it, talking all the while. After a few minutes, one of the men started climbing. He was obviously a beginner, taking lengthy, nervous pauses before moving his hands and feet cautiously along the wall. His body was rigid with tension. Still, he made it nearly two thirds of the way up before slipping and being caught by his harness as he fell. The other two men in Felicity's class took turns going next. Neither did as well as the first man.

Then it was Felicity's turn. Oliver found himself grinning slightly. Felicity had many gifts, but he'd never consider athleticism to be one of them. He wondered how far she'd make it, if she made it up at all. She stepped close to the wall and reached up with her hands to start climbing. And Oliver's jaw dropped.

Felicity was a natural.

After securing her first two handholds, she climbed fluidly and rapidly, as if she'd been doing it for years. Her moves were graceful and limber, and it was almost like watching a dancer; her ponytail even swung back and forth in an easy rhythm as she climbed. She made it to the top of the wall in minutes, the muscles Oliver had noticed in the lair flexing visibly under her tank top. Then she repelled down effortlessly, only to be caught by the instructor at the bottom. Oliver gritted his teeth as the man gripped her waist and lowered her the last few inches to the floor.

 _So_ , Oliver thought, _mystery of the muscles solved_. And it wasn't nearly as bad as he'd imagined. He'd assumed Felicity was getting in shape to go out on missions when in reality she was learning to rock climb for fun...with a good-looking instructor who seemed to enjoy touching her often and far too intimately. Okay...he supposed it was _sort of_ good news.

Entranced by seeing Felicity's graceful moves on the wall, he continued to watch her until he felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. The call was from Susan, and it dawned on him that he'd forgotten his plans for an early dinner with her. He didn't take the call; just texted an apology and told her that he'd gotten delayed on an errand. Reluctantly, he left the climbing gym and headed to the lair. Felicity arrived 45 minutes later, looking flushed and happy.

The team didn't go out that night. There was no new information on Prometheus and no serious crime that required their attention. Oliver watched Felicity working on the computers and thought about how amazing she'd looked on the climbing wall earlier that evening. He wanted to tell her so, but it hardly fit with _professional_ and would no doubt lead to friction when he confessed to following her. It was a shame they'd reached such a state, he thought, where the only choices seemed to be _professional_ or friction.

He recalled John's words from a few weeks ago – that friction between him and Felicity wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

 _What the hell_ , he thought.

He walked over and stood behind her chair on the computer platform, then leaned down to place a light kiss on the top of her head. "I saw you on the climbing wall earlier this evening," he said. "You were amazing."

She turned around to look at him, her brow wrinkled in confusion. He wasn't sure whether it was because of the words or the kiss. "You were there?" she asked.

He nodded, "Yup, I followed you."

Her face flushed and he could see the argument forming in her head. She took a deep breath. _Bring it on_ , he thought. _Let's get back to the way things used to be._

 _Professional_ could go fuck itself _._


	9. Messing with the Space-Time Continuum

_A/N: A season 6 chapter. Spoilers for anyone who hasn't watched up until the holiday break.  
_

* * *

Whoever said _the apple doesn't fall far from the tree_ really didn't know much about parents and children, Oliver decided, or probably much about apple trees either, for that matter. It was one of those folksy sayings that sounded wise but didn't bear out in real life.

Because as much as he loved his son, there were times when William seemed to Oliver like an alien being. Yes, he had the beginnings of what was probably going to be a square jaw and he most definitely had a stubborn streak (especially on the subject of broccoli). His brooding skills, too, were first class. Oliver could relate to all of that.

But when it came to school, William was as different from Oliver as a salad was from a deep fried Twinkie. The kid worried about school. He cared about his grades and he studied hard - _too_ hard, in Oliver's opinion. Oliver would have been happier to come home and find William binge-watching television instead of pouring over books. Neglecting homework was familiar territory; academic anxiety was not. It was frustrating for Oliver not to be able to connect with his kid over something important – especially when he was determined to be a more understanding dad than his own father had been.

Thank God for Felicity. From the moment Oliver brought her home to help William with algebra, he could see that they were two peas in a pod. (Which was another expression involving similarities and food, Oliver realized, only a vegetable this time instead of a fruit. Go figure.)

At any rate, the woman who shared no DNA at all with William understood his academic fears perfectly. She knew right away, for example, that telling the kid _not_ to worry was only going to make things worse. And she knew William wouldn't be happy if she gave him the answers instead of helping him figure things out for himself.

And finally, she knew how to make Oliver see a silver lining in what felt like a cosmic _Gotcha_. Because Oliver Queen…the father of a serious student? With all due apologies to Alanis Morrisette, that really _was_ ironic.

"It isn't just about grades with William – you get that, right?" Felicity asked Oliver one evening, over a late dinner in his kitchen.

"No," Oliver replied, "I'm not sure that I _do_ get it. I don't know what his mother expected from him in school, but it feels to me like he's too focused on earning approval with good grades. I want him to like himself for himself – not because he aces a math or science test."

Felicity shook her head. "He's not studying to gain approval. If that was the only reason, he'd have stopped by now because you've made it pretty clear that you don't care about grades."

Oliver frowned. "Why else would he be studying so hard?"

Felicity patted his hand. "Because he's curious; he likes to know how things work and he's interested in the mysteries of the universe. Figuring things out gives him a sense of accomplishment."

Oliver had a hard time believing that any kid could be curious about school subjects. When he was William's age, the only mysteries he'd been interested in were hidden in Becky Lewinski's underpants.

"Seriously?" he asked Felicity. "What normal kid cares about math and physics?"

She stared at him and arched one eyebrow. He immediately realized his mistake.

"Well…okay…I mean, _you_ cared about math and physics when you were a kid, but you weren't exactly normal…"

Her eyebrow arched higher. Oliver could see that he was digging himself in deeper. He paused to choose his next words more carefully.

"What I meant to say," he stammered, "is that you were _exceptional_. That's why you liked school. Because if you were just a normal kid who didn't like math and physics you wouldn't be able to do the amazing things that you do today. Which really are amazing. And which make me love you even more…"

She smiled. "Maybe William is exceptional, too," she said, not acknowledging his compliment. "After all, he is _your_ son."

Oliver thought about that. Having a kid who was exceptional was a little frightening. _Exceptional_ drew attention; it felt safer to have an _un_ exceptional kid who could fly under the radar. On the other hand, having a son who cared about and worked for something other than his own pleasure was gratifying. Oliver believed that his own life truly began after Lian Yu, when he found a greater purpose. Before that, he'd just been a hedonist occupying space. If William was fortunate enough to discover some kind of calling early in life, Oliver decided he was going to be pretty damn proud of that.

"Fair enough," he sighed. "But can I count on you to help him with all the school stuff? Because honestly, when it comes to math and science, I don't know what I'm doing."

"Of course you can." Her voice was warm.

"Thanks." He took her hand and squeezed it gently. It felt so good to have her in his life again; a partner in all things, not just in the bunker. It was as if everything he'd ever lost had been found, all at once.

"Now," she continued, her voice light, "what was it you were saying about me doing amazing work?"

He looked at her. Her hair was loose on her shoulders and she was wearing red, one of his favorite colors for her. She didn't appear the least bit tired, despite the late hour.

"Let's go to bed," he suggested, "and I'll show you just how amazing I think you are."

She nearly sprinted to the bedroom.

* * *

Felicity helping William with his schoolwork turned out to be a good idea; better, even, than Oliver had anticipated. It allowed the two of them to form their own relationship, independent of him - a relationship founded on common interests and honesty; one they both clearly enjoyed.

Best of all, Felicity and William's friendship made William greet Oliver's eventual marriage to her with delight, instead of the jealousy often displayed by stepchildren. The kid had no fears about losing his dad's attention to a new wife. Probably, Oliver thought wryly, because William very often grabbed Felicity's attention first. There were evenings when Oliver rushed home from the mayor's office only to be greeted by half-hearted waves as Felicity and William kept their heads down over his books or continued playing a video game. Most nights Oliver could laugh about it. Occasionally, he wanted to wrestle the damn game console out of Felicity's hands, send William to his room, and remind her with kisses that she had two men in her life – and that _he_ had seen her first.

One evening, however, turned out to have unexpected and lasting consequences. It started innocently enough – with a physics question from William – but ended up with a new worry for Oliver. And he really didn't need any more worries in his life.

Oliver arrived home late – after nine o'clock. He'd gotten stuck in a contentious meeting with the City Council and wanted nothing more than to have a bite to eat and go to bed ( _and_ snuggle with Felicity). He expected William to have already turned in for the night, but instead found his son and his wife sprawled in front of the television, with a half-empty pizza box between them and frowns of concentration on their faces.

"I don't understand what that guy was saying about space-time," William was saying to Felicity, gesturing toward the television. "Can you explain it?"

Felicity looked up at Oliver and pointed at the pizza box. "Welcome home. There's pizza left if you want some. It's veggie, so it has to be at least a little bit healthy," she added apologetically.

Oliver rolled his eyes. His wife was a joy in every way, but he wished she could embrace cooking a little more enthusiastically. If he worked late, he was sure to come home to one of two options - both of which were full of salt and fat; pizza, or Big Belly burger. It was fortunate that he, Felicity and William were all blessed with good metabolisms. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been pretty.

He took the remaining pizza to the kitchen, slid it onto a plate and popped it in the microwave.

"Felicity?" William repeated. "Can you explain the space-time thing?"

She sighed. "I don't know, William. It's college-level physics. And it's not very intuitive."

"Please? It was on the science program on TV, so they couldn't have thought it was too complicated."

She didn't immediately reply.

The microwave dinged, signaling that his pizza was hot. Oliver removed the plate and studied Felicity with interest. It wasn't like her to evade a question from William, especially one about science. He wondered why she was reluctant to answer this one.

"Felicity?" William persisted. The kid definitely had his dad's stubbornness.

She up on the sofa and ran her fingers through her hair. "Okay, I'll give it a try. But be patient. Like I said, it's not intuitive."

William nodded. Oliver took a bite of pizza and winced when the hot cheese hit the roof of his mouth.

"For thousands of years," Felicity began, "scientists believed that time was an absolute quantity, independent of everything else. Five minutes passing was the same for everyone everywhere; and _now_ occurred at the exact same moment for everybody in the world. There was only one _now_ – and then it became everybody's past." She paused and looked at William. "Does that make sense?"

William nodded slowly. "I think so."

"But what Einstein figured out," Felicity went on, "is that time _isn't_ an absolute and independent quantity. It's bound together with space, and it passes differently depending on how fast we move through space. So, Einstein called the single, four-dimensional quantity space-time. And he told us that all those things about time that we believed for centuries and feel to be true in our gut are wrong. He told us that time is relative." She studied William's face for signs of understanding.

William looked confused. Oliver was right there with him.

Felicity tapped her fingers on her leg and thought for a few seconds. "Try thinking of it this way," she said. "Say I have two clocks that are perfectly synchronized. I put one of them on an airplane and fly it around the world a couple of times, and I leave the other one on the ground at the airport. When the plane lands back at the airport, the clocks won't be perfectly synchronized anymore. The one on the plane will be a few, tiny fractions of a second slower than the one the ground. Moving at six hundred miles per hour through space makes time pass differently. Which means that time isn't absolute – it's relative." She smiled. "They actually did experiments with atomic clocks on airplanes and proved this out."

William did not look impressed. Oliver was with him on that one, too. What did a few fractions of a second on an atomic clock matter?

Felicity glanced between them. "All right, I realize less than a second may not seem like a lot," she conceded, "but if the plane could move near the speed of light, the difference would be a lot more than a fraction of a second. Depending on how far the plane flew, the difference could be years. It's why scientists dream of having spacecraft that can move at light speed. Astronauts could travel huge distances and barely age. One year moving through space for them could be a few hundred years back here on earth."

William frowned thoughtfully. Oliver took another bite of pizza. Fat and salt notwithstanding, it tasted pretty good.

"Where this whole thing gets people wigged out," Felicity continued, "is that depending on where you are and how fast you're moving, time being relative means that what's happening during your _now_ already occurred as part of somebody else's _past_ …or is yet to occur in their _future._ There are physicists who have extended the theory to state that there really _isn't_ a past, present or future – all moments exist simultaneously in the space-time continuum."

Oliver thought William looked a little cross-eyed at that one – which was understandable, because it was starting to sound like science fiction.

Felicity grinned. "Some people have even gone so far as to suggest," she finished, "that it means it's possible to _change_ what we consider to be the past. If all moments in the space-time continuum exist simultaneously, then changing one part of the continuum might change all parts."

Oliver and William looked at one another.

"Is there any pizza left?" William asked. "I think that explanation just wore out my brain."

Felicity's grin faded. "I'm sorry. But you did ask."

Oliver carried what was left of the pizza over to William. His son took a bite and chewed slowly.

"But most of this weird stuff with time happens when you move near light speed, right?" William asked Felicity. "I mean, those of us on earth will never see it because no one can go that fast."

Felicity nodded. "That's right," she said soothingly.

William shrugged. "Then I'm not going to worry about it. I'll wait until I have to take the class in college to understand it." He got up and gave Oliver and Felicity a short wave. "Goodnight," he said. Then he headed for his bedroom.

Oliver gave a silent cheer. It was a little before ten and he had Felicity to himself. Plenty of time for a little X-rated snuggling before he had to fall asleep and then get up in the morning to face the City Council again. He saw the grin return to her face and knew they were on the same page.

It wasn't until they were both in bed and he lay poised over her, working his hand under the pajama top she had needlessly taken the time to put on, that something occurred to him.

There _was_ a person who could move at the speed of light – faster, in fact. And he'd already altered the past at least once. He had made John Diggle's daughter - along with everyone's memories of her – disappear.

Barry Allen.

Barry _I-Can-Mess-with-the-Space-Time-Continuum_ Allen.

Shit.

Oliver's hand came to a stop as he considered the implications. When Barry had first told him about John's daughter it had been a shock – but an abstract sort of a shock. The same sort of shock Oliver felt when he saw an earthquake or a plane crash on television. It was terrible, but it wasn't personal. As a supportive friend, Oliver had voiced his sympathy to John but he hadn't spent hours dwelling on the fact that Baby Sara Diggle was no longer in the world. After all, John had ended up in a good place – happily married with a son. And Oliver had no memory of Sara. It was tough to mourn a person you had never known.

But Felicity's explanation about space-time made Oliver realize that Baby Sara disappearing wasn't a fluke. Barry Allen had changed the past once and there was no reason why he couldn't do it again. Hell, maybe any time the sonofabitch went racing around at light speed he might _inadvertently_ make something go away. And the world would be none the wiser.

Oliver looked down at Felicity – at the woman he was finally able to call _my wife_ after six years – and felt a shiver run down his spine. He had wasted two of those six years not admitting that he loved her; another year thinking they couldn't be together; and the rest of the time in a screwed-up comedy of errors filled with lies and substitute relationships. They'd finally gotten to where they belonged – where they _should have been_ all along. And Barry Allen could undo all of that simply by flexing his speed muscles. He could create a world where Oliver might lose Felicity…or even a world where Felicity had never _existed_ , just like there was no longer a Baby Sara.

Shit.

"Oliver?"

Felicity was looking up, studying his face. She was smiling, but there was a hint of confusion in her eyes. He moved his hand to her cheek and stroked it lightly with the back of his fingers.

"Oliver, what's wrong?"

He shook his head, not wanting to ruin her night. "Nothing's wrong," he lied. "Just thinking about how lucky I am." He lowered his head to kiss her.

"Bullshit." Her lips moved against his as she said the word. "That's not an _I'm lucky_ face. That's an _I'm worried about something_ face. So, I repeat, _what's wrong?_ "

He should have known he wasn't going to get away with trying to distract her. She could read him far too well. Oliver shifted his body so that he was lying on his side close to her. Then he wrapped one arm around her waist and rested his head next to hers on the pillow.

"I was thinking about your explanation to William," he said quietly in her ear, "about space-time and the idea that one change in the continuum might result in other changes – even to things that occurred in the past."

She frowned. "You were thinking about physics just _now_? When you had your hand up my shirt?" She grimaced. "I must be losing my touch."

He chuckled, despite himself. "Of course not – you could never lose your touch when we're together like this. It's just that…" He paused, searching for words. "It's just that I don't want to lose you, Felicity. We've had so many things stacked against us and we've finally made it to where we should be. The idea that our history could change – that something could change it - well, it scares me. We could end up separated, through no action of our own. We could even end up in a world where we've never met. And I don't want to ever be without you again."

He thought she might laugh at his foolishness, but she didn't. She rolled onto her side to face him and rested one hand lightly on his chest. "The chances that we get separated due to a ripple in the space-time continuum are pretty remote, Oliver," she said. Then she smiled. "It's more likely that you'll get angry with me because I keep giving William junk food for dinner."

He didn't smile back. He wasn't going to allow himself to be distracted either. "You know that's not going to happen, Felicity." He put his hand over hers. "But let's face it; neither one of us exactly leads a regular life. We've seen some pretty weird stuff. Mirakuru soldiers, aliens, a Lazarus pit that brings people back from the dead—"

"My mother and father dancing together at our wedding reception."

He shushed her gently with a finger against her lips. "Seriously - I wouldn't put it past the universe to mess with us by changing the past. And we both know someone who can move at the speed of light."

She sighed. "Barry."

"That's right. Barry."

"Hmmm."

He was quiet for a few moments.

"Is that why you were reluctant to explain space-time to William?" he asked at last. "Because he knows The Flash can run at light speed?"

She nodded. "I thought he might put two and two together and come up with some difficult questions. He's a worrier, like you Oliver, and he's a smart kid. I'm actually a little surprised he _didn't_ go there."

Oliver gazed at her disheveled, glossy blonde hair. "I'm relieved that he didn't."

She tapped his chest. "No…you went there instead. And now _you_ have worry-face. Which might be worse."

"Sorry."

She leaned forward and kissed him on the underside of his chin. "Well, look on the bright side, Oliver. If our pasts do get changed, it most likely won't bother us because we'll never know the difference. We'll be living altered lives; we won't ever have met."

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. "I think that would be the worst thing of all – to never have met you."

"Really? You don't think ignorance will be bliss?"

He raised his eyebrows. "A world where our lives don't intersect? Where I never get the chance to know you?" He shook his head. "I don't want any part of that. You've changed me in so many ways. No - I'd rather remember you, and if I have to, deal with the pain of losing you."

" _Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all_?" she murmured into his chest.

"Exactly." He ran his fingers through her hair. "Shakespeare?" he added.

"Tennyson, Oliver. Tennyson said that."

He sighed. "Oh…Tennyson - right." He shrugged. "Well, we both know I wasn't the brightest student. Unlike my son, apparently, who is much smarter than his old man."

She shook her head. "You're plenty smart, Oliver. Look at all the things you do well today. You're the mayor of Star City and you have the respect of people like John Diggle and Quentin Lance. You just weren't motivated when you were in school. Having watched you these last six years, I believe you can do anything when you're motivated."

"I can?" He felt a small rush of pride.

"Absolutely." She began to caress his chest with light strokes. "And right now, I think you should be _motivated_ to take care of my needs."

"Your needs," he repeated.

"Yes. I'm a grown woman and I have needs." She moved her hand lower, from his chest to his abdomen.

"And it's my responsibility to take care of these needs."

"It is," she stated. She moved her hand lower still, past his abdomen to…

Oliver suddenly found himself _very_ motivated.

"Well, I wouldn't want to shirk my responsibilities," he said, "in any universe."

* * *

A few days later Felicity sat surrounded by paperwork, feeling both excited and a little frustrated. The papers were the documents that legally established her start-up business, Helix. The excitement came from the challenge of standing on her own two feet and doing work that she loved. The frustration came from a dislike of all things legal and bureaucratic. She placed the stack of papers in front of her and reluctantly started reading.

She was on her fourth _whereas_ when her phone rang. She was surprised to see that the call was from Barry Allen.

"Barry?" she answered.

"Hey, Felicity," he said.

"To what do I owe the honor? Is everything okay?"

"Everything here is fine," he said, "well, at least as fine as it ever gets. I was calling to ask you the same question. Is everything all right with Oliver?"

Felicity frowned, instantly concerned. "Yes," she said nervously, "as far as I know. Why?"

"He called me yesterday," Barry explained, "and told me that I'd better be - and these are his words – _damned careful about screwing with the space-time continuum_. And then he basically hung up. So I was wondering if you knew what prompted the call."

Felicity smiled, relieved. She should have known that Oliver wasn't going to let this one go. "Yes, I'm pretty sure I know what prompted it. Don't worry – it's nothing bad. Just some fallout from a physics lesson with his son a few days ago."

"A physics lesson? He sounded serious, Felicity. He was using his _Arrow_ voice."

Her smile grew broader. "I'm sure he _was_ serious. But he's not going to do anything – I promise. I'll talk to him tonight."

"Okay." Barry didn't sound entirely convinced.

She gave him a few seconds. When he didn't add anything, she said, "Was that it? Or is there anything else on your mind?"

"No," Barry replied, "that was pretty much it. I guess we'll just keep in touch."

"Sounds good. And Barry?"

"Yes?"

"It probably _would_ be a good idea to not screw with the space-time continuum. You know, just in case."

Felicity hung up before he could ask any more questions.


End file.
